The New World
by Vasilisa23
Summary: Third of the series: With the resurrection of three, and the boundary between worlds broken, more than war looms over the new world. T/Hr
1. Chapter 1

Ipswich, England

THE NEW WORLD

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is the third installment of a series that began with Even the Stars Can be Moved and The Other Hermione. If you haven't read those, this will be incredibly incomprehensible. You can find them on my author page; The Other Hermione, although a sequel itself, is possible to read on its own.

Float flat magic in low, changing evenings.

Shiver your hands in dance.

Empty all of me for dreaming,

And let me be that dream in purpose and device.

From "The New World" by Imamu Amiri Baraka

Ipswich, England.

Hermione had been here, once. A summer vacation. She landed on the cold, dewy grass of a meadow. The sky above her was gray, night being watered down by day. Waterlogged clouds hung low in the sky. She was looking up at them as she ran; they were running with her. Just over the crest of the hill, and she'd apparate again. It would take him some time to find her point of apparition—at least, she hoped it would. _Salazar Slytherin_, she thought, her mind giddy.

She crested the hill and apparated.

London, England.

The alley near her apartment. He couldn't know where her flat was, could he? He couldn't deduce its location, could he? It didn't seem to matter much now, but she might care a lot later. Hermione ran away from her building. She couldn't tell if he was seconds or minutes behind her. Surely he was following her, but she hated not knowing how close behind he was. She didn't think it was possible to lose him.

She turned into another alleyway, and apparated.

Leeds, England.

A couple she'd known at Oxford were from here; she and Ron had visited them. They'd taken a portkey, but she remembered the place, knew its location relative to others very solidly.

She might die. She might even probably die. Hermione forced herself to confront the possibility. She might be killed by Salazar Slytherin—and then what? Would he gain control of the Faer Land—it was the control over the boundary, of course. He couldn't let her have that. It was why he was after her. So long as he lived, he wouldn't stop. It was very likely she would die, she realized, and he would stop at nothing after that. He would do again what he did before. Hermione shuddered. She had to warn them. Harry and Ron.

She performed a modified point-me spell, individualized for each of them. Both arrows pointed in the same direction. They were near the house Draco had bought her to when he kidnapped her—they had probably gone after him there. In the distance behind her, she could hear the sound of apparition.

Well, at least she could silence her own. Hermione muttered an incantation under her breath, and closed her eyes, and after that, she apparated.

Derbyshire, England

"Harry," she said, "Ron." Harry and Ron swiveled around, from shock into greater shock. There was completely filthy figure sitting on the ground between them, looking up at her with discordantly blue eyes, but she had no time for that. Harry and Ron listened to her in open-mouthed astonishment as she said: "Slytherin's alive. Go _now_. The Boundary's broken, he's alive, _go_. Don't follow me."

"Her—"

Hermione realized they wouldn't move fast enough. She grabbed Harry and Ron roughly by the shoulders, looked at the dirt-covered man, took his arm as well, and forcibly apparated them all from the spot.

Dover, England.

They landed in the sea. Hermione had thought of the water washing off their scent, wading through a river like you do to evade animals. Ron and Harry were spluttering—the dirt covered man, whose hair was streaming, was thrashing about wildly. Forcibly apparating someone in the best conditions is difficult—three of them, one a stranger, was damning. Hermione floated weakly in the water, gulping air.

"Go to Hogwarts," she managed. "Trust me. I can't explain, but I know what I'm doing. I'm safe; you're not. You have to go, now." She was lying. She had no idea what she was doing. She would fight, she would use what she had against him, but she might die. In fact, she probably would. She looked at Ron. The expression on his face, half unspeakable anger and half unconditional love, was painful. "Please," she said. "I'll stay here until you go, and the longer I stay, the faster he'll find me. _Go_." She'd stay here for that, and she'd stay here because she had little strength left for another apparition.

"All right," said Harry, grabbing one of the unnamed man's arms. "Hogsmeade. Let's go, Ron."

"Thank you," said Hermione with feeling.

Ron, treading in the rhythmic surges of the ocean, said nothing. He didn't have to. "I'm sorry," she whispered. She wasn't sure if they heard her, they left so soon.

She gasped at the air now, wishing she'd disapparated to land so at least she could collapse. But she couldn't, she mustn't. It was her fault he was here. She had to fight him.

She was sure, suddenly, that he was coming, and she disapparated again, and he _did_, he was, he crackled in and it was the last thing she saw.

Manchester, England

What she needed, clearly, were spells that had been invented after Salazar Slytherin's time. It was really lucky for her that he had been dead for so long. She knelt on the grass, soaking, trying to regain her breath and her strength. She had to get away, he had been so close, he was coming, she could feel it.

There was a crack and he was there. He spotted her immediately and grinned.

Hermione closed her eyes and apparated again.

Essex, England

It was only moments after she arrived in Essex that Slytherin cracked in. Moaning, Hermione turned, thinking of France, hoping the distance might have some effect.

The Foret Sacre, France

_This_ was strange. She had no right to know this place—it was a place known to her other self, the place where Tom Riddle had killed Grindelwald. She had been to France before, she should have thought of someplace she had visited with her parents. But this was the first place that had occurred to her.

Hermione stood. It was a good place to make her last stand. It was a mere moment before Salazar Slytherin cracked in. He was covered in dark robes, a tall, slim figure, his angles bordering on the unreal. His robes swirled around him and settled, and he regarded her. There was a look about his face like Tom's, but his was impossibly angular and cruel, with huge, sleepy-lidded black eyes underneath thick, arching eyebrows. His forehead was high, and proud, his mouth fixed in a rigid line, his posture arrogant and imposing.

"Hexen," whispered Hermione, her wand extended. It was the first hex invented. It brought oblivion and pain. She only had a chance with oblivion; death had already been invented in Slytherin's time.

Slytherin raised a hand—he had no wand—and _caught_ her spell. The light coagulated into a ball and sat on his palm. He regarded it with a smile, then looked at her with his terrible, dark eyes. Then the light was no longer in his hands. It was around her, all around her. There was pain, and oblivion.

.((0)).

.

Mione opened her eyes in the room she had been called to. The walls and the ceiling were white and blue, the sky outside blue. The ceiling was made up of geometrical patterns that changed at will. She had to remind herself that this should be strange, all of it. She was in the Faer Land—she was alive. But she had known she would be alive again, hadn't she? What was strangest since her troubled waking, was that nothing was strange any longer.

"Why did you do it?" She hadn't heard that voice before, but she had known it would be coming. It was a harsh, jagged, unreal voice, the sound of breaking glass. She turned to face the voice's owner. He had dusky blue skin and yellow hair and watched her with light blue Siamese cat eyes. She blinked at him, waiting for him to speak again.

"You said you could not accept the implications."

She closed her eyes again. The shifting windows were giving her a headache.

"Do you remember when you asked me what I would do?"

She opened her eyes again. "I'm not quite who you think I am, Yilander."

The room shifted. The man stood up, slowly, his eyes angling down at her. "What did you call me?"

"Yilander. You've died before, haven't you?"

"How do you know my real name?"

"I remember all the names of the dead."

He looked at her. "How is this possible?"

"I was chosen, of the three returning, to remember them."

"The three returning?"

"Myself, Salazar Slytherin, and King Arthur."

He expelled a breath more like a wind, a chilly wind that cooled Mione's shoulder where it landed. "You remember death."

She smiled; her eyes were indifferent and vague. "I know the names of the dead. That is enough."

He stood regarding her for a long moment. "You aren't her, are you? But I don't understand."

"The truth is a puzzle," admitted Mione, sitting up. "But it is easy enough to explain. I traveled in time, and changed it, in such a way that the time in which I chose to go back in time, became undone."

A slow smile spread across the Blue King's face. "That is unique," he said. "That is an excellent use of magic. You see, my fellows, in their constant permutations and perambulations, leave any originality far behind. I sometimes look into the mundane world, at its wonders."

"And now the mundane world will look back."

The change in his expression was immediate and dangerous. "And you say Salazar is back to claim his realm?"

"He is."

He pinned her with his eyes, as though he meant her to be an insect. "What will you do about it?"

"We will stop him, of course. He doesn't have the boundary; this much is on our side."

He stood in front of her now, towering over her, glowering. "The girl has it, doesn't she? The one who didn't have to go back? _You_, in other words?"

"Yes, it's hers."

"What's to stop me from taking it out of her hands?" He'd bent close to her now. Interesting that Faery Folk used the same type of intimidation as the people of the mundane world. But Mione was beginning to think she was incapable of being scared, the same way she was incapable of being surprised at the strangeness of the Faer Land.

"Me," she said softly.

She saw him lift his hand, but she did not need hands in the Faer Land. Not wands or hands or spells or theories. She had learned this much from Salazar Slytherin, in that dark world that had been their temporary sleep. She had learned enough to know the magic of this land better than The Blue King. She saw the strange and grotesque agonies the Blue King had prepared for her, for Hermione, which he was happy to inflict on her. They were child's play, mere colorful scrawls. Once she had been horrified at even life's petty crimes; now she was capable of reading them for intelligence and power, and she did not find much of either in the Blue King's way of doing things. Certainly it was not even as interesting as the power Lord Voldemort had managed to accumulate through his crimes.

The Blue King was unmoving before her—she had his real name, and her own name had no power in it. He could do nothing to her. His magic was entirely contained by her own. Here, raw power was all, practice and study nothing, will all, intellect nothing. Mione's natural power was greater than she had supposed; it was greater than the Blue King's.

"You warned me, it is true, and my life might be a near enough price for you. However, you cannot take from me what I don't wish you to take. Still, the repair of a broken promise is owed you, so I will allow you one thing: a favor." There was no movement to accompany the magic that occurred when she lifted the spell on the Blue King. "One favor. Now I must go. Do not call me here again."

.((0)).

The Foret Sacre, France

Mione did not crack when she appeared in the Forest; her arrival was silent, and so Salazar Slytherin didn't turn to her when she came. Mione regarded the two, Salazar standing over her other self, and was relieved to experience shock and a sense of unreality as she encountered her other self.

Mione was ten years younger than Hermione. The change was slight, but enough to jar her—so this was what she would have grown up into, all other things equal. Slytherin was rousing her from unconsciousness with Faer Magic. When Hermione blinked her eyes open, Mione was glad to see them full of calculation, and not of fear.

"Tamlyn Phelops," Mione said quietly.

Salazar Slytherin turned rapidly from Hermione, wand extended. His face emptied of expression on seeing Mione. His eyes flickered back to Hermione—and Hermione now was staring at her. "What—"

"Tamlyn Phelops," said Mione, and extended her wand. "By your true name I yoke you to the place you awoke in. Begone."

A look near wonder crossed Salazar Slytherin's face in the moment before he disappeared, and Hermione gasped. "What the—that wasn't a _spell_."

"It was name magic. Wildly ineffective, now that people's names have so little importance."

Hermione stood, staring again at Mione. She was draped in green cloth and looked like something out of a fairy tale. Her eyes were gold, her skin an unpinked pale, her hair seemed darker than usual, and there was an expression that was not her own in her eyes. She shivered; she hadn't known she was capable of eyes like that. "What did you do?"

"I sent him to the Faer Land." Mione looked intently into Hermione's brown eyes. "He'll be able to unlock himself soon enough. You have the boundary in your hands. You have to lock him inside the Faer Land by it."

"What about the magical creatures?"

"Only him. The boundary is utterly under your control now—you remember what Salazar could do, you remember Rowena's account of it—you do know, don't you? I mean, you must, to have broken it."

"I know," said Hermione, regarding her hands, which were no longer silver. She closed her eyes and opened them again after a long moment. "How do I do it?"

"Will," said Mione. "Faer magic is based on will alone. Want it, and it will be."

Hermione gave her a look and closed her eyes again. After a moment, her hands glowed silver. Her eyes fluttered open. "How do you know about Faer Magic?" She scrutinizing Mione; an uncomfortable feeling for her, who could see the sharp expression of her other eyes.

"I learned it from Tamlyn Phelops," she answered quietly.

Hermione regarded her for a long time. "I suppose you knew he was returning?"

"Three of us. Myself, Salazar, and King Arthur."

"King Arthur?" She beat a brief tattoo into her jeans. "So he really is the once and future king, is he?"

"You know the prophecies."

"Hang on—I think I've seen him… He was with Harry and Ron… This is all—King Arthur, Slytherin, you, the Boundary-- something's coming, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"I don't know."

They looked at each other again, for a long time. The strangeness of their meeting was undone by their familiarity with each other, themselves. Mione wanted to ask about Ron; Hermione wanted to ask about Tom; neither did. "What was it like?" Hermione asked finally. "Dying."

Mione shook her head. "I cannot say."

"I—I don't know if what I'm doing is right anymore."

"I haven't known that for a long time," said Mione, her eyes veiled. She shook her head. "I don't have any more answers for you than I have for myself."

Hermione drew her knees to her chest and circled them with her arms. "This isn't going to be like it was, is it? With Voldemort, I mean?"

"I don't think so," she said. "We're in a new world." She looked down at her counterpart, with her normal life, with Harry and Ron. The girl who had everything she wanted most in the world, everything she regretted giving up. "What will you do?"

"I don't know," said Hermione. "Find Harry and Ron, I guess. They should know where Slytherin is." She inspected her hands. "They should know I have the Boundary." She looked up. "What will you do?"

"I'll go back," said Mione.

"To Tom?"

The expression in Mione's eyes was pained. She'd never wanted anyone to know. Briefly, she nodded.

"I—I know. I understand."

"You're the only one," she replied. But she offered a smile, and, without apparition, without a wand, she was gone.

Hermione closed her eyes, opened them again, and regarded the new world.


	2. Chapter 2

Reviewer Replies:

Ninja Nicole—damn, you're a fast reader. Well, glad you're on board.

Hoshi-Chan 1—yeah, I can't wait for what comes next either. I can guarantee that insane things will happen in this story. Things you're definitely not expecting.

Dingohart—wow, thanks. I'm so glad the second story is possible to read on its own.

Rosiline—you're so loyal. Thank you.

3d planet—hopefully this plot-a-licious chapter provides more intrigue.

Blindfaithoperadiva—why, thankee. I paid for that beginning with an ambiguous end to the last story. Sorry about that.

Blackpants—ah, time. It makes monsters of us all, neh? No, this time around I'm taking my time and constructing it a bit more. The last installment was a bit rushed. Not that I'm being SUPER careful, since this is fanfic, after all. And also I'm finishing my contract and preparing to move out of the country I'm in, so for the next few months, there will be delays.

TheCrescentMoonWriter: Thanks, I like the title, too. It's from the poem that I quoted in the beginning. Fantastic poem. The beginnings will be quote-tastic from here on in.

A note to lurkers, particularly those who add me as a favorite author, story, or story alert: So, I am a completely lame review-dependant fanfic writer. I mean, I write this stuff because I feel compelled to, yes, but I wouldn't be here now if not for the reviews making me feel like others are getting something out of this too. In fact, some of the really thoughtful, sweet reviews that I've got are probably the only reason I am still writing this. And I have this e-mail address specifically for fanfic purposes, and I check it out for review alerts. So, you know that I get an e-mail notification every time you guys add me for author or story or alerts or whatever, right? And you know what kind of sucks? To check your e-mail and see you have a dozen e-mails, and not a single one of them was a review. Just notifications. Which has happened before, but it really was out of hand on the first chapter of this fic. Now, I understand lurking, really I do, I have been a lurker. That's why I don't do the I-want-ten-reviews-before-I-post-again thing, and I really haven't brought it up before. But, if you have time and inclination enough to add me as a favorite author or story, then please take some time to send me a review. It can be anything, it can be a flame for all I care, it can just be the word "fish". Whatever tickles your gills. And also? If an author has managed to complete a story, which is an often rare thing in fanfic land, you might want to thank them for the effort they took not to leave you hanging. Thanks, guys. Sincerely, a sometimes lurker, sometimes reviewer, always writer.

Chapter Two

To see the world in a grain of sand

And Heaven in a Wildflower

Hold Infinity in the Palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.

-William Blake

.((0)).

Terry and Padma's relationship was like this: Terry was in love with her, and Padma wasn't. She had been having an affair with Blaise Zabini since she'd come to work at St. Mungo's, and she was fortunately unaware of Terry's unrequited crush. There was no way to compete with someone like Blaise. He was tall and inhumanly handsome; Terry was skinny and wore glasses. Blaise had money; Terry pretended he didn't want any. About the only thing he had over Blaise was his brains, but since Blaise was an intelligent enough bloke, it hardly mattered.

Usually Terry could handle the situation. He and Padma worked well together, better together than Hermione worked with either of them. But she had been absent from work quite a lot lately, and at the same time all of the exciting things she was bringing to work caused Terry and Padma to work together much more than usual. It would be easier if she didn't smell so nice, and if she wasn't so fascinatingly graceful and genteel. Terry was on his last nerve when it happened.

Chomper came into the office space. It was strange, because despite the fact that he had four legs, he came into the office the way a human would, as if he was requesting an interview. But his presence didn't strike Terry as very strange—after all, why shouldn't he come into their office—that is, until he spoke to them. "Good evening, friends. It appears that your efforts to restore us to our natural state have been successful," he said. He was surprisingly articulate, considering the dimensions of his mouth. "You have the eternal thanks of the Empire of the Unicorn."

Padma stared at Chomper with her jaw actually hanging open. After a moment, her mouth closed, her eyes blazed, and she said, "Hermione." Terry didn't want to tell her how much he agreed with the assessment. What with her earlier, inexplicable disappearance, she was bound to have something to do with it.

Terry glanced from Padma to Chomper, mulled it over for a moment, and promptly fled the room. He headed for the Patient Space, where Yryll was in her water chambers. Yryll was looking into a mirror—the mermaids had their own magic, water magic, that allowed scryings and communications between them. He had spoken to her extensively about the possibility of teaching her wizard magic, in exchange to learn the mermish arts. She was talking to someone, in Mermish. But she was outside of the water, and every once in a while she punctured her speech with a word in English.

"Yryll," he said. "Ni Kdaona?" What happened? He'd been studying mermish for some time, in exchange for teaching her English.

Yryll turned to him slowly and blinked. "Mr. Boot," she said.

"You can—"

"Oh, yes," she said. "My speech is quite intelligible now; mermaids are naturally proficient at languages, in and out of water, which is why our particular curse is so irksome. I am talking to Legate Ulliens. There are old ties between the Empires which are suddenly very important. Time is of the essence, now. I think you do not need me any more."

"Oh, that's not true. Not if we want to have a really rigorous neuromagicological study taking into account the subneuromagicological components that Hermione discovered. But you've given us plenty of data, and you're quite free to do what you think is necessary."

"Thank you. There is work to be done. Excuse me." She turned again to the mirror and resumed her mermish conversation. Terry turned from her and left the room. He didn't want to go to the office and face Padma—he knew she was seething. She had a right to seethe—it was terribly irresponsible to open the Boundary, especially considering the key was the resurrection of one of history's most terrible wizards. And Hermione had given her word she wouldn't do anything, not until they knew more, had properly tested everything.

But she had been imperiused, many times over. It was expert work. Terry had realized as soon as he came upon her in that state, there was a lot he didn't know. Maybe she'd had to open the boundary. Maybe someone else was trying to open it. The sigils, all of them except those stored on the Telebrain, were gone. He had been hiding the fact from Padma the whole day.

When Hermione disappeared, she hadn't any of the sigils on her. He'd only discovered all the paper copies to be gone a few hours later, and had been trying to decide what exactly that meant ever since.

As if on cue, Padma appeared in the doorway, her eyes stormy and her jaw set. "Where the bloody hell are the sigils?"

Terry just looked at her dumbly. "The sigils?"

She turned back into the office. "The sigils are gone, Terry! Hermione took them! I can't believe her—no, maybe I can, I should have known she'd do whatever she pleased, she always thinks she's right—it's as if we aren't her scientific _peers_, I swear to Merlin."

Terry sighed. "All right. All right. I guess there might be something I have to tell you. Several things."

Padma crossed her arms and waited.

.((0)).

Firenze had ventured into the Forbidden Forest. Although he was expelled from here, he still came into his old home often, taking care to avoid his former brothers. The Defense Diagram made this easier; Hermione, Harry, and Ron had given it to him upon graduation after hearing from Hagrid that Firenze often took unwise trips into the Forbidden Forest.

He had taken a sharp left at seeing a centaur nearing him—it was Serrez, a harmless palomino mare, a friend of his niece. She was a good-hearted girl, and certainly wouldn't inform the tribe of their meeting. Still, he did not wish to see any of them; it was unfair to expect anyone to conceal his infringement from the tribe.

He was tip-toeing through a patch of Blibber Bushes, into an accidental sort of path that led west, towards Grawp's cave. It was where he wanted to be headed. There was an ancient Burning Place nearby. His people only went their on special occasions; he felt this qualified as one: he wanted to know the fate of the world. He had observed the stars, had discerned the meaning in the conjunction of constellations, whose occurrence was unanticipated until tonight. He knew he must do a burning, and concocted a blend of incenses with a genius occasioned by the importance of the moment. He wasn't the son of Uru for nothing, after all.

He looked up at the clouds moiling overhead, layered white and blue, and blue and white. A wind stirred as he neared the short path to the clearing. It came sooner than he expected, the triangular section of grass surrounded by a border of dirt. The Hoofprint of Alize. The Burning Place had been her creation. Firenze remembered the triangle, the hoofprint, from childhood. He thought she had stepped there, within the triangle (he'd always supposed the triangle marked her first hoofstep into the Burning Place), but she never had. He found out when he was seventeen. Smiling at the green triangle, Firenze went to the Burning Place, undoing his hood as he did so.

The Burning Place consisted of four pillars, which counted off the Quarters of the year, and, in the middle of them, an altar on which to divine by burning which incenses a Burning required. Firenze stood in front of the North Pillar, as it was in the North Quarter of the year, and placed his incense in the Central Altar. He stood in front of it and lit it at four points, each halfway between two of the Altars. He passed first his left hand, then his right, over the smoke, stirring the current clockwise and counterclockwise. He clapped his hands over it, at which the smoke began to follow the Cardinal Pillars. In this case, it headed counter-clockwise. A reversal. Prophecies categorized events as those that either reversed the order of things or progressed them. Most prophecies were progressions.

Firenze watched as the smoke took form at each of the different pillars. It darkened at the first, until it was black: a dragon. The black dragon did not shift back into smoke, but progressed until it reached the next pillar. Here, from the tail of the smoky black dragon emerged another, this one a poisonous green. The two circled each other, and cavorted together towards the next pillar. Here, a white dragon emerged from the mouth of the first one, and it snarled at the other two, provoking them and running to the last pillar. Here the white dragon produced from it's eye a golden dragon, which faced the first two with the white one. The smoke that composed it turned to fire, and the last dragon, the golden dragon, burned until it consumed all the dragons in its light. Then in faded, turned back to ash, golden, which scattered into the wind.

.((0)).

Ron, Harry, and King Arthur landed in Hogsmeade in something of a heap; Ron and Harry had gotten tangled together, but King Arthur had dropped to his feet with barely a sound, and watched them with his hands behind him and his chin tilted. He was covered in mud and rags—much less so now, after the ocean, so you could make out his features and hair color—but he managed to look like an aristocrat. _Must be pureblood_, thought Ron.

"If yon damsel spoke unto ye true, we'd best take ourselves away anon. I have wist Salazar Slytherin, and he is an orgulous and wicked man, and his power speaks to it."

Harry was frowning at the man.

"About all I got out of that was Salazar Slytherin," said Ron.

"Hold on, did you say you were Arthur?"

"Aye."

Harry smiled at him disbelievingly. "You wouldn't happen to be Arthur as in, um, for instance… _King_ Arthur?"

"Aye," he said. "They still bandy about my name, then?"

"Which one was King Arthur again?" asked Ron.

"You know, the king. Of England."

"Yeah, I remember him from Rowena Ravenclaw's autobiography, but what did he do?"

"Knights of the Round Table, friend to Merlin, seeker of the Grail?"

"Oh. But I thought it was Galahad who got the Grail?"

Harry sighed. "Right, but. It's King sodding Arthur."

"I must insist once more that we depart," said King Arthur. "The evil of Salazar Slytherin knows no bounds."

"Right," said Harry. "Where should we go? Who would know something about this?"

They were both silent as they thought about the most obvious choice—but she was the one Slytherin was after, and they didn't know how to help her. Ron sighed, and said, "Let's go to Luna Lovegood's. She knows about things that shouldn't be real."

Harry shrugged. "Sounds good to me."

Ron nodded to Harry. "My turn to side-along the King." He bowed to King Arthur. "Your heinie."

"Highness," corrected Harry.

"I agree completely," said Ron, taking King Arthur's arm. "Ready?" he asked.

"Indeed," said King Arthur. Ron inspected him in bemused disbelief before turning on his foot and apparating.

"King Arthur," breathed Harry, looking at the spot they'd disappeared onto and shaking his head. "I _love_ magic." Then he, too, disapparated.

It took a lot of knocking to get Luna to come to the door. When she did, she was wearing a yellow rubber dishwashing glove on her left hand and a mitten on the other. She offered no explanation for them during the preliminary introductions. She blinked with equanimity at King Arthur as Harry told her who he was.

"Do you… recognize the name, Luna?" he asked unsurely.

"Oh, yes," she replied.

"So you know who this is, right? That he's been dead for a thousand years?"

"Well, the Boundary to the Faer Land has been broken. This seems like the perfect time for King Arthur to come back, doesn't it?" Luna sounded surprised that Harry and Ron had any reason to question the man's resurrection. King Arthur, for his part, was listening to the conversation shrewdly. He had a definite reaction to the word "boundary".

"Hang on. How do _you_ know the Boundary's been broken?" asked Ron.

"Oh, my slugworm turned pink. The Guardians of Chaos say that slugworms and tiptree pixies and hurtling goonyfrogs will all turn pink when the Boundary is finally open."

"…"

"Anyway," said Harry, "it can't have been due to any of that, because me and Ron saw him resurrect in _this_ world, in a graveyard by the Silversmith Manse."

"Oh," said Luna. "I wonder what it was, then?" she asked thoughtfully, wandering away from the entrance and into her house. It was the same as always—full of the oddities she and her father were so fond of collecting. Her father had been on a permanent adventure since Luna left school, and the house was more filled than ever with strange and often dangerous items. She turned to them again. "Wait, did you come here because you expected me to know something?"

"Oh, you were our first thought, Luna," said Ron. "It was like, we've got King Arthur, who is apparently not a muggle story but an old muggle king who was big friends with Merlin himself."

"Aye, bless him in his fatal abode."

Ron turned to him, tried to think of some reply, and managed: "Um, yeah." In a stage whisper to Luna: "You see what I'm talking about? Think you could turn him upside down and suss something out?"

"We thought you might have some insight into how, and why, he might have been resurrected," said Harry.

"Oh," said Luna with wide-eyed solemnity. "Why me?"

"Well, you know, it's weird, you're weird, you might figure out an equally weird solution. I figure, whatever works."

"I see," said Luna. "You know that there's prophecies about King Arthur's return."

"Oh?" said Harry and Ron together, a bit skeptical. Arthur looked vaguely interested by the mention of his own name.

"Yes. You broke them in the Department of Mysteries, in fact. But I've got transcripts of them in a book in my room."

"Excellent," said Ron. "Books," he added under his breath, as if books had somehow insulted him.

"Would you like some tea?" asked Luna.

"Only if it's black and from Britain," said Ron.

"I have Welsh Blacktar Tea," said Luna, and added thoughtfully, "It's not very good, though."

"That's okay, I'm fine," said Ron hastily.

Luna turned suddenly to King Arthur. "Have you eaten since your resurrection?" she asked Arthur placidly.

"Nay, fair damsel, I have not."

"I see. Would you like some cake?"

"I would fain to eat whatever repast you prepare."

"Well, I've just finished a gillyweed and broiled parsnip casserole," she said.

"Gramercy, fair lady."

Ron gave Arthur another incredulous look and shook his head. "You sure he's English?"

Harry laughed. "That's how we used to talk."

"Speak for youself, mate." Ron sighed. "Ugh, all those bastards in the Silversmith Manse are escaped now."

"I think there are bigger things to worry about now."

"I know that Harry, but have you thought they might be able to tip us on to some of the bigger things? However the Boundary was broken, I don't think Hermione's the one who brought Slytherin back."

"Ten pounds it was Malfoy."

"I'm with you there," said Ron.

Luna came back with a casserole, which Arthur devoured even faster than Ron had ever managed. Upon eating and drinking a suspicious and unidentifiable juice that Luna produced, Arthur passed out rather promptly on the couch, cup still in his muddy hands.

"Did you put something in that, Luna?" asked Ron.

"No," she said, wide-eyed. "He did just come back from the dead, though. He may be jet-lagged."

"I'm not sure that word means what you think it does," ventured Harry.

"Enough bullocks, people. Salazar Slytherin is out there and resurrected and chasing my… girlfriend. Or whatever she is now."

"Let's see where she is," said Harry.

"Slytherin is chasing Hermione?" asked Luna. "Why?"

"Well, there's the fact of his evil," said Ron.

"Yes, but… it's strange," said Luna. "Why would that be the first thing you do?"

"Maybe she did something to piss him off," said Harry. He turned to Luna. "She apparrated to us, to tell us he was back."

"Oh, so it's an apparition chase? Hmm. Let me get something." Luna disappeared for a moment, and Harry inspected the sleeping, filthy king.

"I can't believe King Arthur resurrected. Right in front of me."

Ron squinted at Harry. "Why are you all star stuck over it?"

Harry grinned. "King Arthur is like… the muggle Merlin."

Ron digested this. "But you're a wizard."

Harry shook his head. "What does that have to do with anything? He pulled the sword from the stone, battled the Romans, married the most beautiful woman in the world—"

"Was that a political marriage?"

"Who knows what it really is. But the thing is, the man's a legend."

Luna returned with a silver goblet filled with a silvery liquid. "Quickwater," Luna explained as she cleared away a spot on the elephant-footed coffee table. "Put it in silver, and it will show you what you want, where you want." She tapped the rim of the cup and said: "argentlevo". The liquid in the cup began to smoke, until the surface of the liquid was entirely covered with smoke. "Show me Hermione Granger," said Luna. The smoke unclurled from the cup, unpeeling itself like an orange, a strip of smoke corkscrewing and disappearing into the air.

It was like a wizarding photograph in a cup. Hermione was in what looked like the Forbidden Forest. She seemed composed. She walking along—Ron recognized the path she was on, it was headed towards the Hogwarts grounds.

"Doesn't seem like she's being chased anymore," said Harry.

"She did say she knew what she was doing," agreed Ron.

"She always does."

"You know," said Luna thoughtfully, "Perhaps King Arthur is related to this."

"Yeah, probably," agreed Harry. "But the thing is, I don't have a bloody idea what's going on, and now that Hermione's safe I'd really like to get some answers from her so that we have a better idea of what to _do_."

Ron looked at Harry. "That's not something Harry Potter is supposed to say."

"Shut it."

Luna had drifted over to a window.

"Oh, look, it's a Crumple-horned snorkack." Luna's voice was serene as she looked out of the window.

"Oh, are we onto the classic ones now, Luna?" asked Ron.

Luna eyed him drowsily, and languidly extended her wand arm. "Accio Ronald Weaseley," she said musingly.

"Oi!" he shouted as he went hurtling violently over to the window, where, thanks to a silent bit of spellcasting, he was abruptly stopped and dropped next to Luna.

"Look, Ronald," she told him.

"What? Oh… What is that thing?"

"A crumple-horned snorkack. Note the characteristic curly horns and trumpet-like snout."

Harry went to the window out of curiosity and leaned out to inspect the creature, who was currently munching on a patch of daisies by the path to Luna's house. With a trumpet-like snout. It had very large black eyes that it blinked curiously at them. "That is a seriously weird creature."

Luna was at the door now. "It's a good thing I've been saving these dried dragonflies," she said, taking a container from a table by the door. She opened the door and started to make a very strange clicking, whistling sound. "Here you are, Mr. Crumple-horned Snorkack."

Ron and Harry watched in fascination as she extended the container of dried dragonflies. The creature, who did indeed have two curly horns, looked up from his snack of daisies. Apparently dragonflies were more appetizing, since it came bounding over to Luna, wagging a tail at the end of which was a pink pommel of fur.

"It's kind of cute," Ron admitted grudgingly.

"I can't believe Crumple-horned Snorkacks actually exist," said Harry.

"I told you so," said Luna, and she sounded very, very satisfied as she said it.

"You want to know something weirder?" asked Ron.

"What's that?" asked Harry.

"There's also a sodding dragon in the sky."

Harry and even Luna looked up and saw that he was right. Looping around in the sky, flying at breakneck speeds in the distance, was a blue dragon, of no variety Harry or Ron knew.

"The Boundary _is_ broken," pointed out Ron.

"That means all the creatures of the Inhuman Empires will be sentient," said Luna.

"Oh, _sod_," said Harry.

.((0)).

Tom looked up at the Evening Star above him. He had been walking towards it for miles. He knew from Salazar Slytherin's library that it led the way to the center of the Faer Land, where those who ruled reigned. What had been, in Rowena Ravenclaw's time, a castle.

Mione had seemed very confident when he'd last seen her. She'd been very sure that her impending disappearance wasn't anything to be worried about, that she would see him again. But on all other accounts, she had been entirely unclear. And having seen her again in front of his eyes, regained and proof of his power, he wasn't going to wait for anything anymore. They were both alive again; they had will, and they were wizards. He was confident he would find her, or her him, and soon.

He could make out a tilted glass spire in the distance, as if the horn of some giant unicorn asleep in the shifting landscape of the Faer Land. It was strange to see the counterpoint of this still landmark against the backdrop of a changing scene. Tom knew this was the center, and had traced Mione to a point near here.

The sky darkened rapidly, and suddenly. That was strange; it had been the same kind of daylight until now. Tom looked up at the flat-bottomed, dark blue clouds floating overhead. They passed swiftly forwards, seemingly headed in exactly the direction as Tom. They were centered over him; he could see them peter out on either side. Something was watching him. Someone.

He turned. At the sight of him, he stood still. Salazar Slytherin. There was no doubting it; he looked just as Tom had always pictured him. His lips were settled into permanently cruel triangular grooves; his eyes were hooded and unspeakable.

"My heir," said Slytherin softly.

"Salazar Slytherin."

"Yes. You do not seem surprised."

"Seems like everyone's coming back to life these days. Even me." Tom watched the man who had been his mentor since he learned of him, the man that he'd never quite given up along with Lord Voldemort. He was a terrible sight. "How did you find me?"

"I sensed you." His black eyes flickered up into the contorting trees. "In the wildness." He reached out to a branch, and the branch began to extend towards him, and they touched for a moment. He was looking at it as if he was reading it. "You are the son of my sons." He smiled. "Sweet gray Hellewas." He looked up at Tom, with the same peculiar glance he extended to the tree. "She was much like your mother. Your Merope."

"She wasn't mine," said Tom. "I have no family, not really."

"Ah, but you do. Even I had a fat old mother and more brothers and sisters than I had fingers. Although, looking back at them, they seemed more a mass than individuals. That is what makes us special, Tom. Our beginnings. Our tiny, pathetic little beginnings. You see, we became bigger, bigger than could be expected. I, a human, you, with your conception of poisoned rape, your nonmagical half."

"You'll never convince me there's anything to me unmagical."

At this Slytherin laughed, a series of waves crashing out of his mouth, and he didn't stop for a while. "Ah, if you could see with my eyes, but you cannot. You would know why you can't possibly be a threat to me. You little wizard in a muggle-caged world, always hiding from the muggles, living your narrow little life in which you perform fifty or so spells a day when you're not practicing." He extended his hands, and the world around him changed. Leaves turned into blood and rained down from the trees. Slytherin turned his face up into the downpour, let it become a red mask. The trunks curled into spires of smoke, which didn't dissipate. Instead they undulated within the rain, until it stopped, and then they curled back into trees, this time black and ragged, eaten completely by fire. Slytherin looked back at Tom, who was standing under a partial Scutio spell (well, at least wizard magic worked here), who was staring intently at Slytherin, his hands, his eyes, trying to find out what he'd done. "I _am_ magic. I am not just one body with limbs and a head. I am everything around me, the trees, the ground, and I can change them just as I can flex my finger. I am even what is not me, Tom. For instance, I am you."

And then Tom drifted up, losing his eyes for a brief moment before he was looking down from several feet above himself, dislocated from his own body. He watched it below him, still for a moment before it turned, very deliberately, and stared up at Tom. Slowly, Tom's mouth stretched into a gruesome smile, a smile reminiscent of Salazar Slytherin.

"Your body is no longer your own," he said.

"But my soul is," said Tom—thought, rather. "And I've been a ghost before." He could feel his astral body, and levered it towards Salazar Slytherin. He watched Tom come to him, allowed him to stretch out his hand.

Tom had been capable of a certain kind of wandless magic as an incubus, independent of his ghost-bought abilities. He was certainly capable of a finite incantatem. He only hoped it would work on Faery magic.

Suddenly he was zooming back to his body and found himself looking back out of his eyes. "I don't care," he said in a ragged voice. "The power, your work—none of it matters. I am not your heir. I belong to myself, and my agenda is my own." And with that Tom apparated, without a sound, without even a dash of light. He couldn't know that Hermione had closed the boundary on Slytherin. He couldn't know that he'd escaped.

"You're right," Salazar said softly to the spot Tom had disappeared from. "It's not you I want. It's the other one." And he smiled, his black eyes a starless night.

.((0)).

From there, to overnight, the world was changed. The centaurs, unlocked from their borders, boldly ventured into the world, uncaring of the muggles. They ventured out in groups, armed but in a subtle manner, and the muggles were, for the most part, awed. Then there were reports of dragons. Upon gaining sentience they sent representatives out into the world. It appeared their civilization was much more advanced than anyone had realized, and they resented being bred.

Of course, the Ministry rushed in, having hurried and desperate discussions with centaur tribal leaders. No one wanted to confront the dragons just yet. Rumors were abroad about the Giants. No one knew about the unicorns, or the mermaids yet; they had remained circumspect. The centaurs had talks with the dragons and agreed that they had better deal with the muggles, who seemed very amenable and much more common sensical than wizards. Say what you will about muggles, but they are very adaptable. The centaurs had been contacting scientists, political bodies, and the media. The dragons contented themselves to flying over cities, landing only in the emptier places of the muggle land. After a few days people started to realize the dragons wouldn't try to kill anyone. The dragons had no grudge against muggles; muggles hadn't made slaves and playthings out of them the way wizards had. They had proper respect; some people had even left offerings out for the dragons. They felt differently about wizards, and in the first week after the Boundary was broken, there were several attacks, which abruptly stopped after an inter-Empire meeting.

At first, much of the muggle world refused to believe what was happening to their world. Conspiracy theories abounded, from the dragons being flying robots to the centaurs being Japanese clones to it all being an elaborate media hoax—an idea that persisted among many people who had not made a direct sighting of the creatures that were entering the mundane world, with far more regularity than they visited the wizarding one. In fact, one could say that the Inhuman Empires were avoiding wizarding places.

The Ministry, predictably, went into overdrive to prevent the muggle community from discerning the presence of the wizarding community. The Daily Prophet had been blaring about the movements of the magical creatures, riling up wizarding folk, scare-mongering about centaur deviousness and dragonish destruction and what if the Giants should think to pay Diagon Alley a visit? There was some kind of back-door deal between the Prophet and the Ministry, and the Prophet began to advertise recruitment posters. The Ministry was funding a secret task force to deal with the magical creatures and the muggles.

"It's no wonder all the Inhuman Empires hate us," remarked Ginny to Harry one night, after watching coverage on the Telebrain. Harry could only think of what was coming, and he reached for Ginny's hand. She clasped it in hers, and squeezed it tight.

In County Cork, Ireland, a young muggle boy encountered a dragon drinking from a local pond. It turned around, blinked at him, and swallowed. The boy offered it a carrot. The dragon grinned and accepted the carrot, followed by an apple and two oatmeal cookies. Then he spoke, offering the boy a ride on his back. The boy grinned, and spent the rest of the day zooming around the skies of Ireland on the back of a Goldenbacked Sharptail.

In France, some Giants made their way down from the Alps, and trampled a local wizarding town, killing eighteen people and demolishing nearly a hundred houses.

The centaurs from the Forbidden Forest near Hogsmeade entered Madame Rosmerta's tavern and demanded Butterbeers. Madame Rosmerta happily served them, but one of the patrons alerted the Ministry. After a brief demonstration of the pointiness of a bow and arrow, the official who was dispatched shrugged helplessly and agreed with Bane that centaurs certainly weren't prevented from entering magical establishments, there was nothing on _parchment_ anyway.

There were no sightings of unicorns. They were meeting secretly in their forests, discussing their next move. They weren't the only ones who kept themselves secret. The mermaids, too, thought it prudent to establish their ties with the other Empires before presenting themselves to any humans. And there was darkness brewing in the Faer Land, which very few knew existed, so that it was far from sight.

The world was unfolding like a flower.


	3. Chapter 3

Lots of important information in this chapter, so pay attention! Just so we're clear on one point that I didn't make explicit, but which should be fairly obvious: no one who is resurrected or who comes back in any way or who is a ghost—none of these people is capable of knowing or remembering what Death is like. In life, knowledge of what is past it is utterly, utterly impossible—which is what makes Mione's new abilities (you'll see) so significant.

Jeanne—thanks for your thoughtful review. I need humor at this point, else things get ultra doom-and-gloomy. I'll be going out in a lot of avenues on this fic—Luna will definitely get a storyline, for instance—but the center with be Tom and Mione, so rest assured Tom will get a much bigger role in this fic. There is hope for Hermione and Ron, kind of. I mean, I feel Ron has earned himself a break. The Arthur dialogue requires tons of careful reading of the Malory Morte D'Arthur—and you know that stuff is going to influence this—it's a freaking pain in the ass, thank God the wizards talk more sensibly. Slytherin was about to hex Hermione into oblivion—he was about to kill her, actually, before Mione's arrival. And you'll see in this chapter why she's so different.

Hoshi-chan 1—how cool would a movie based on a fanfic be in the first place? I could think of a few I'd like to see. Thanks for the compliment.

3rdplanet—Glad to see people are getting something from the Arthur dialogue. I never know if what's funny to me is funny to other people. And Ron is important for me to do right. I mean, Hermione's been with him so there's got to be something there in the first place—I think, really, he's kind of her moral compass. I've never liked canon Ron, I felt he could have been given a bit more strength, so I just write him how I wish he had been written.

Blackpants—thanks. Delays do after all mean 11-page chapters jam-packed with secrets and plot twists.

Tommy girl—oh, you're like me, I never add authors, I just look up the story and check it out. There won't be any threesome action, sorry, I know that could be hot and hmmm… now I'm getting ideas. But I want to give Tom and Mione their time together, they've earned it. And they get it in this chapter.

Rosiline—no, no, Hermione will not ever get Mione's powers. She's got a different storyline. It will probably be much more surprising than Mione's storyline.

TheCrescentMoonWriter—well there WAS that deer/unicorn creature that was in the news… heh, the worst thing about reading JKR's books was how much it sucked that I was a muggle, I know what you mean. I mean, running into a dragon would be cool, no doubt, but being able to Avada Kedavada my enemies? Yeah, I would have gone straight into Slytherin.

Blindfaithoperadiva—hopefully my comic will be ready to go by next summer, I plan to be at comicon. Anyone interested in reading it can send me their e-mail, I'll keep it on a list.

.((0)).

When he stroked the bark of pine trees he felt close to the earth; when he listened to the rustling leaves he understood that man's secret outlives man. He had learned that the true forest was the one that drives wolves mad and makes men thirst for blood and compassion.

-Elie Weisel, The Gates of the Forest.

Tom was doing much what Hermione had been doing earlier that day: he was apparating rapidly from one place to the next. He went from place to place in a triangle, returning to his original position and then backstepping to the one before; triangulating wasn't enough; he affected a square between Oxford, Kent, Dublin, and London, and doubled back diagonally towards Scotland, and Hogwarts.

Geometery and backstepping were effective methods of eluding an apparitive follower, but Tom was sure they couldn't be effective against the likes of Salazar Slytherin. But there was a strange feeling, in the back of his head, that Slytherin wasn't actually following him. Then he went to the Forbidden Forest. He apparated without thinking about it, in a sudden moment of pure instinct. He simply wanted to go there.

It was the place where a centaur's arrow had pierced Mione's heart, and she been on the cusp of dying, where Tom had brought her back. Something had happened in that moment, an extraordinary magic. It had marked the ground; there was still a hazy halo suspended over the spot. He remembered the incantation, and closed his eyes as the memory of coursing through the spell, incanting it, pulling it from the very depths—then he turned around sharply. He could feel the same sensation he had in the Wild—someone was watching him.

Someone was there, on the path, past the bend, but he knew immediately that it wasn't Salazar Slytherin. It was Mione. Her thin white neck and shoulders gleamed through the leaves; her strangely made green dress matched them. She came round the bend. He could see her eyes now, see them gold as he'd made them, when he brought her back. They seemed to grow brighter as she stepped forward, blazing out of her face like swords on fire. They lit her dark curls, underscored them with gold. Her skin gleamed as she came through the clearing, caught in the moon.

"Tom," she said, her eyes fixed on his. Her hand floated up, small and pale. "Here you are."

He just looked at her—she was so different, but it was still undoubtedly her. And she was watching him, ignorant of how he came to be here—she must be, mustn't she? He didn't even know that much. But it didn't matter, and nothing did. Mione looked back at him from across the clearing. She hadn't had time to consider him, really consider him, that he was within her grasp again, after so long. If nothing else was possible, this was. She smiled.

"Hermione Granger," he said. He stepping into the clearing, walking over to her. "I've been saying that name over and over again in my head for almost a decade."

Her eyes traveled up as he neared her, his impolite tallness forcing her to tilt up to him like a flower reaching for the sun. He looked tremendously self-satisfied upon seeing her; he shone with pride at bringing her back. "You should call me Mione," she said. "I'm different, really, than what I should have been."

"No, love, you're exactly what you should have been." He cupped her face and a corner of his lip quirked up upon looking at her. "Look at you. You're wild with power."

She was breathless, suddenly. How wonderful to be breathless. To feel. "Am I?"

"Oh yes."

She laughed; the laugh didn't quite catch. He leaned down, cupping her shoulder, and kissed her. Her lips were cool; they melted underneath his; she could feel an undercurrent in his heat, a desire, a desiring. It drew her into it; his tongue probed her mouth and she was undone, unlocked, past help.

He kissed her where her jaw met her neck; his lips were hot. She pressed a hand against his chest, and grasped the dark cloth of his robes—his school robes, still; the clothes he had died in, how strange. So strange, he was here, and she didn't know why, he hadn't died properly, hadn't come to her, she had thought she wouldn't see him again. Had he managed to live? Was it the Grail after all?

All her mortal calm was shattered under him. She drew back, her eyes searching his, how could it be, but—she kissed him again, silencing herself, ignoring that all those doubts that had died with her had been resurrected with her also—how had he gotten her bones? And there were other things. But it _felt_ right, his lips soft, faintly sneering, tilted up slightly more at the left corner than the right owing to Gellert Grindelwald's knife. His half-lidded thick-lashed eyes watching her.

Mione undid her green sheath and let it slide to the ground. Tom's hand, still on her hip, caught it in a partial way, so that it drooped down from her hip to the ground. Tom sucked in his breath involuntarily. Ah, yes, that old pleasure of unseating him, so rare. His long hand traced her form, rounded her breasts, outlined her stomach, drew the curve of her hips.

Tom's eyes were dark, and hooded, his lips parted and darkened with kisses. "You look rather striking, you know," he said, one hand circling her wrist, the other her waist, and he tilted her back as he kissed her, and she leaned back and back. He let go of her wrist and took her thigh, bringing it up, bracketing his hips with her legs. The sensation of her, naked, legs parted around him, her breasts pressed against him, was too much, and he fell to his knees suddenly. The fall brought her even more firmly into him, and she betrayed a sigh that provoked him to press against her. Mione responded, deepening the kiss and pushing against him. She undid his robes and jacket and shirt hastily, with magic—and Tom couldn't help but notice she didn't need her wand to do it. She exposed him, pushing his clothes off him. He spread them underneath him; she was pulling down his trousers, he was uncovered in the air. Mione covered him with her hand and softly traced her index finger across the length of his penis. It rose against her, and with a gasp Tom entered her. He bit her shoulder and then stilled himself.

"Mione," he whispered.

She opened her eyes and took his face in her hands. They watched each other; he stroked her lower lip with his fingers, parting it from her upper lip, dragging his thumb across it one way. The sensation on her lips lit her up with coiled heat, and there was that sense again, of thirst and desire and want, she wanted him and he wanted her, his thoughts were hers and the same.

They were looking at each other at the same time, when Mione's eyes fluttered towards the side, and his eyes followed, and he could see that they were enclosed by a golden light—they were on the spot he had brought her back to life on. They had stilled without knowing it, looking at the curious golden light, and then at each other, and when their eyes met again there was a flame between them, it was the same, they felt the same, and it grew brighter. They drew closer together, eyes entangled and lips lowering towards each other, inclining their bodies into the closest of curves and lines, it was bright, and brightening. They met, and climbed, and fell, and flew.

.((0)).

Home. A thousand years later, and Salazar Slytherin was home, in the most perfect of all places, the changing lands, the infinite country, and he was trapped. He had been trapped behind the veil for all those years, awaiting his return, and now he was trapped again. Still, this was his land, and though changed, it was still an extension of himself.

The girl. The double girl. It was the first who had bound him, but the other had been an utter surprise. She knew his name. No one had known his name, not for his entirety of his previous life. They looked similar, the two girls, twins as far as he could tell—but the boy, Draco Malfoy had said nothing about another, nothing about anyone that could be like the other girl, with those golden eyes. There was a quality to those eyes that provoked something within him, some part he did not know of—something about her. And she was contained; as soon as she apparated onto the scene she had shielded herself and Hermione from his ever-present Legilimency. And Slytherin had been so busy following Hermione and fighting her that he had gleaned only a little.

It was tied to his heir, this much he had learned from the mudblood girl. There was also much he had discovered when he'd inhabited Tom Riddle's body, extraneous information left behind by his forcibly ejected consciousness—and those golden eyes were one of the first things he saw. They both had two forms—the girl and his heir. It was all very intriguing. And there had been names—people were very careless about their names these days, it seemed, if it could be so easily gotten from a wizard of power—which Tom was. And as for that girl…

There was another, out there, another of Slytherin's blood. It didn't shout, the call of his second successor, not the way Tom Riddle in the Faer Land did. The heir's counterpart was out in the mundane world, and he was not alive. Slytherin wanted the bones in his hands. He could learn much from them. He could learn if the other heir would work with him. Tom and the girl were formidable; he wouldn't make the mistake of underestimating people again—not wizards or muggles.

He called up a mirror, in the span between a growing serpent's head and tail. They were in a field of chairs and tables, the latter of which were changing with an occasional pop into teacups. It was an annoyance; at the raising of his hand the field was silent, and still, and unchanging. Only he, true king of the Faer Land, was capable of such stillness as this.

He spoke to the mirror and told it to find Draco Malfoy for him, which it did in less than a moment. The boy was in what appeared to be a reading room; it was Julian Silversmith's reading room, to be specific; Draco had been staying at his house ever since Hermione had made Malfoy Manor Unprotectable.

The boy stood up and came dutifully to the mirror, even if his expression did sink deeper and deeper upon every step, as he realized what he'd gotten himself into. He'd forgotten the permanence of being beholden to a powerful wizard with an agenda. "Yes?" he asked.

"Lord Voldemort," Salazar Slytherin said.

The boy's reaction told him immediately that he was in possession of his remains.

"I want his bones."

The boy's expression sunk even further. He looked as if he was about to speak, but wisely decided not to. His eyes were on his feet, looking as though he was waiting to be executed. "That is all," said Slytherin. With a blink of his eye the mirror shattered—two hundres and thirty four kilometers away, so did its counterpart.

"Shit," swore Draco Malfoy softly.

.((0)).

Mione stretched on Tom's discarded school clothes, drawing her leg into the air and inspecting it. She was quite pale, paler than normal. Tom caught her leg and drew it towards him, and she draped her arms casually around his neck, resting her head on his bare chest. They were still naked, and Mione didn't have a care in the world. There was plenty of time for everything that was to come—for now time was hers to do with as she pleased.

"I can't believe you're really here," she said.

"Speak for yourself," said Tom. "I wasn't sure I'd manage to get you back."

Mione turned. She'd half-forgotten there were things to learn, things in the living world, none of which she had been privy to during her death. "How did you?" she asked.

"The only Faer magic I know—resurrection. It was the only magic Salazar Slytherin discussed in his books."

"In the hopes someone would resurrect him," said Mione.

"He hardly needed it, what with the key to the Faer Land's Boundary."

"Oh?" she asked. "Whatever was it?"

"A particle of Salazar Slytherin."

Mione smiled. "Ah, so that's what it was. Clever, very clever."

Tom looked at her in some amusement. "I'm not sure your counterpart would agree."

Mione turned to him. "Oh. Did you know… her? I mean… the Hermione who didn't have to go back."

"Yes, I did. I was quite attached to her."

"Attached to her?"

"In a manner of speaking. You see, when I died… I became an incubus. And she was you, more or less."

Mione regarded him for a long, penetrating moment. "An incubus…" She turned onto her back and regarded the dark skies above them. "How extraordinary." The corners of her lips curled. "I wonder…" she said.

"What?" asked Tom.

"If," said Mione in an irritatingly vague fashion.

"All right," said Tom impatiently, grasping her wrists and facing her back to him. "Tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"Everything you're not telling me now. Starting with what you-wonder-if."

Mione diverted her gaze once again. "I wonder if…" she said tentatively.

"I wonder if?" Tom prompted.

"I wonder if… your will is greater than Salazar Slytherin's."

Tom laughed at that. "And you would be an appropriate judge of that?"

"I would," she said. "And the thing is… you may not like to hear this, but I at least, if not perhaps you, well… we must avoid the Faer Land. You may, if… Well, neither of us are… The thing is, I offended Slytherin by forcibly teleporting him from where he was—he was about to kill—Hermione, actually, to gain power over the Boundary. But I… removed him, and then Hermione locked him in."

Tom was laughing again. "Amazing. Teamwork with your alternate self. You literally saved yourself." He looked acutely at her. "Now in all seriousness, darling, tell me—how did you learn Faer Magic?"

Mione stared incredulously at him for a moment. Then a slow smile spread across her lips. "Clever man! However did you guess?"

"Well, there is that bit of forcible teleportation you just told me about—"

"Oh, that was Name Magic," said Mione. "Different thing entirely."

"Oh? Huh—well. You can tell me about that, too, but later. Now, what about the button trick from before?"

Mione laughed softly into the crook between his jaw and neck. "Yes. Yes, yes."

Tom closed his eyes despite himself—Mione saw him, and smilingly pressed her mouth against his neck. He turned her around and hovered over her, his hands pinning her wrists down close to her shoulders, her breasts exposed, his ankles locked around hers. He was suspended above her. "You're trying to distract me. Tell me. Where did you learn it?"

Her dark-fringed gold eyes looked at him frankly. "You know where."

"Death?"

She regarded him for a long moment with an impenetrable expression, and then said. "The Other Side. Which is many things. When I—entered it…I suppose you could say the place I came to be was a sort of Purgatory. Well, not—but it was temporary, but we didn't know how temporary it was." She sighed, and averted her eyes. "Isupposed I'll tell you, Tom, but no one else."

Tom let himself down, to her side, and she put her hands on his chest, and leaned against him.

"Soon I was given to know that I and two others would be returning in the same moment, and it was a moment that would alter world history. Profoundly. I mean, it's not just history, it's—the nature of things. And I, and Salazar Slytherin, and King Arthur, would be the first sign of it."

"King Arthur? What good is he?"

Mione chuckled softly. "He is very powerful, Arthur Pendragon. Everyone's power is laid bare on the Other Side, and power is synonymous with will. We are all free, and yet we are never harmed. So power is pure there, unattached to earthly constraints. He is powerful, very powerful… and he's good. Slytherin was chosen because of his evil, and because he also is powerful… so powerful. More than I or Arthur, certainly. I've never—there's no one, not Dumbledore, not Grindelwald, no one I can think of more powerful than him. Perhaps Merlin."

"And you?"

"I am… neither. I'm not good, or evil, and… I remember. That's what they gave me. I remember _everything_."

Tom looked at her, understanding for the first time the extent of the situation. He knew she remembered Death, and that was impossible enough, but he had thought her memories partial. _No one_, never, even with potions and Grails and Horcruxes, not with the Faer Land—it was impossible to return from the veil and retain any memory of what lay beyond it. It was in the very nature of things. "Everything," he repeated.

"Yes," she said. He looked at her—she had changed, and profoundly, in her absence. Tom had presumed death to be some sort of dreamless sleep from which she would awaken—it was a place where time passed. Where learning was possible. "I mean," she said, eyes flickering back and forth—"not just what happened when I was there. I remember all the things the dead do."

Tom didn't respond.

She didn't want to see the expression on his face; she didn't know how he would react to such a gift falling to her. "I don't know why," she said.

When she did gain enough courage to look at him, she saw the same expression in his face as when he was considering an interesting magical theory. "Is it all just in the back of your head?"

"Like most things. I've learned to find what I need. I spent a lot of my time past the veil… wandering in my new thoughts. It's… amazing." She smiled, a smile which began in reluctance and ended in pride. "I wouldn't give it back for anything."

"Neither would I," said Tom. "If you remember all the dead do, then…"

"You were an incubus," said Mione. "A ghost. You were on the other side of the veil—I can't access the memories of ghosts. Unfortunately."

Tom gave her a penetrating look. "You still haven't told me how you came to know Faer magic."

She almost smiled—the one person in the world who'd ever been able to get past her secrets with a mere glance in her direction. But she was reluctant to speak of her tutelage. "I knew Salazar Slytherin, there… Slytherin came to—he was my teacher… well, in a manner of speaking." Tom could tell that this insignificant sentence was incapable of conveying its real meaning. Hermione's eyes wavered in recall, and what things she recalled Tom couldn't imagine. And very likely she couldn't explain.

Funny, when she had first come to him she was full of secrets. Now that she'd come back, she had even more.

.((0)).

Draco was seriously considering turning himself over the Ministry as he walked out of Julian's house. Malfoy Manor had been completely torn down, and the ground all torn up. It was currently being rebuilt, but was taking a very long time, since they couldn't use magic, in order to avoid the Unprotectable magic still lingering in the air. When it was completed, it would have to be sealed very carefully against that remnant of Hermione's curse—he felt a sudden flash of anger at her. It was all her fault, wasn't it? If only she'd just let things be, Mrs. Silversmith would never have felt the need to protect them with Salazar Slytherin.

But he knew his great aunt had been right. A world with an open Faer Land (in which muggles could once again go to steal magic), sentient creatures, and a Hermione with control over the Boundary? C.R.A.P. would actually happen; there would probably be werewolf students in Hogwarts and recalcitrant House Elves within the year. He didn't want that world. He would accept quite a lot of things in order to avoid that world.

What he wouldn't accept, was the resurrection of Lord Voldemort. So Draco found himself considering the Ministry. Only, the Ministry wouldn't protect him, not from Salazar Slytherin—and anyway, couldn't Slytherin get the bones himself? Maybe he should—Merlin help him, he'd lost it, he'd actually though about going to _Potter_ for a moment.

Strange. He was walking towards Silversmith Manse now, where the bones of Lord Voldemort had been moved to. He hadn't meant to walk there. He didn't mean to. But he was. Disturbingly, he didn't seem to be able to stop. In fact, "seem" might not be the appropriate word, because the fact was quickly becoming undeniable.

Well, at least his new master was effective. You hardly needed to order people to do anything when you could simply control them. He tried to consider this aspect of it as fear galloped towards him at the speed of light.

.((0)).

"There is a library, in one of the in-between places, and in this library is every book that has ever been, or will ever be. Added to these books are also all the books that will not be, every book people think to write but never do, every book that would have been written by those who died too soon to write them, every book, in fact, that it is possible to write."

Tom and Mione had gotten a room at the Leaky Cauldron—in London Mione had simply transferred a quarter of the galleons in Hermione Granger's Gringott's account into her pockets. She did this without a wand, and without words. She had promised Tom the moment after this display to teach him Faer Magic.

They couldn't go to the Faer Land, not now; they had agreed on this. Tom wanted to know about Slytherin—everything and anything, but it was difficult to recall that strange time, which already seemed so far away. It was the place where the last of her goodness was stripped away from her, so little room for hope in all that knowing, and with that dark man beside her…

Distraction was certainly one of her aims in speaking of the library. But she did want to go, very badly—it had been so difficult to see the amazing places people had been to or known of in their lives, without the slightest chance of going to any of them. And memories were simple things, so often frayed and fragile. People forgot much more than they ever knew. But incredible things tended to leave persistent memories of it, and the Library was exactly such a thing. Mione had wanted to visit it more than any other place she'd heard of. An infinite library, with a Godel numbering system in place of a Dewey Decimal System, and a librarian with a thousand eyes? It was impossible to resist.

"Shall we go?" asked Mione.

"But what about Slytherin?"

She sighed—she hoped he hadn't become even more obsessive than he had been previously. "Think of what we can learn in the Never-Ending Library. Better to find something heretofore unknown—that's the best possibility of defeating him."

"Weren't you just wondering if I was as powerful as Slytherin?"

"But I don't know."

He gave her a shrewd glance. "Well, what about Lord Voldemort? He died. Do you have a measure of his power?"

How did he manage to seize on all the questions she least wanted to answer? "Well, it was strange, actually. He had none."

"What?!"

"His power lay in taking, and destroying power. In nullifying other's power. Even in Death, he took it from those around him, although it only weakened them, and never destroyed them."

"So he managed to cause some damage, did he? That isn't the picture I got from your description of Death—the lack of destruction in particular."

"He… takes, inverts, divides. It doesn't destroy, exactly. It was a weakening."

Tom focused intently on an inner portion of his thoughts. "What of my power?"

"You are not Lord Voldemort," said Mione. "In a very real way. The reason Lord Voldemort is like that, is because everything you were had been consumed by the thing you created. There was… no soul left. It wasn't simply divided. It wasn't there. Without a soul, there is no power."

"Hmm," said Tom, considering this, considering what it meant, in terms of confronting Slytherin, in terms of entering the Faer Land again. He needed to be there to really learn Faer Magic; he needed Faer Magic in order to be powerful enough to confront Slytherin; and yet Slytherin's presence prevented him from being in the place he needed to be to acquire that power. A catch-22. "Name magic," he said. "Tell me about that."

"Oh," said Hermione, "Name magic's _easy_. It's fun, actually. I'll show you the trick." She waved her hand over the table and a piece of blank white paper appeared to grow out of the table—Tom was watching her do this bit of Faer magic intensely. There was already a quill on the bureau, so she used that. "It doesn't really work with modern people. Names don't have power anymore. Not unless you hide them. People who go by different names than they were given—that's who name magic has power over. Suppose one such person is named John Adam Smith." She wrote his name on the paper. "Now what you have to do, is take every letter of his name—his whole name, mind you—and arrange them into a symbol. It can be quite out of order. I like to take repeated letters first to make little patterns—like MM, turn one upside down and put it underneath the other…" Mione lost track of her words and started to make a sort of abstract symbol out of the letters of John Adam Smith's name. She completed it very quickly, and the resulting image didn't look as though it had come from letters at all. "And you hold this image in your head as you cast the spell."

"But in the heat of the moment, you would have to go through this process in your head."

"Sure," said Mione, "but the slower-witted among the dead tended to compose pictures of people as soon as they learn their real names—that's what most people did in the old days, at least. No good wizard would have done, however. Rasputin used to enjoy making variations of combinations, and composing them differently upon each confrontation."

Tom smiled. "You know what Rasputin remembers… You must know what Salazar Slytherin remembers, mustn't you?"

She sighed. "Yes…"

"_That_ is an advantage to us. Perhaps we might go to the Wild after all?" So the Library hadn't put all thought of it out of his head. Pity.

"I don't think you understand how powerful he is."

"Explain it to me, love. Tell me freely anything in that marvelous mind of yours."

She smiled, even blushing a bit—she hoped Tom didn't notice. "He can do—practically anything, really. Within his sensory capacity he has complete control over matter. And he can extend his influence, make things happen faraway, as long as he knows enough. He is more or less a permanently active Legilimens—he can read the foremost of your thoughts the same way we can see, he can feel who people are from miles away, he can follow your apparition and sense your magical signature."

"And you know how he does all this?" asked Tom.

"There is knowing," said Mione, "and there is power. There is ability… and also, I don't have knowledge of those memories formed past the veil. Slytherin has been past the veil a thousand years—it's not just Faer Magic to worry about."

"Do you have any idea—"

Mione shook her head. "It's impossible to know what he might. I've an infinity of information, but truth remains just as elusive as it always was. Slytherin might hide his secrets in plain sight, I might already know what he's planning, or perhaps I'll think I do but it's meant to misguide me—he's a bit like you, really."

"Bit like yourself, in case you haven't noticed," said Tom drily, tapping his fingers idly against each other. "You and your secrets."

Mione considered him, and herself, and found no objection she could reasonably make. After all, wasn't that exactly what had drawn Slytherin to her in the first place?

"Hermione Granger," said Tom, smiling. "By your true name I bid you to come to me."

She laughed, and allowed herself to be propelled into his arms, amused at his quicksilver genius for magic (even with all that she knew, it had taken Mione some practice to get name magic right), but underneath she was worried—her name had power over her, now. It was a distinct disadvantage.

.((0)).

Draco made his way over to Mabon after retrieving Lord Voldemort's bones, under the compulsion Salazar Slytherin had laid on him. He used the journey to make his peace with the situation. There was no way to unbind himself from the wizard he had resurrected. But it had been he who had resurrected him—surely an advantage lay in there somewhere? Meanwhile, his path was as it was. Lord Voldemort was coming back, and Draco knew he was an idiot for not considering the possibility. He was the heir of Slytherin, and resurrection was open to the world with the Boundary. It was inevitable, once he thought about it.

Luckily, Mrs. Silversmith had surely considered this possibility. She'd known Slytherin would kill whoever did open the Boundary. Otherwise she'd have sent Draco to open it as soon as she had the sigil. This way, the Boundary was open, without risk to himself, and it was Hermione's blood Slytherin was after. It was quite neatly played, really. Surely Mrs. Silvermsith had something planned for Lord Voldemort—she hated him more than any of them, and she had managed to protect herself and her grandchildren from him.

Draco hoped his reluctance wasn't known to Slytherin, but had thought long enough about their interactions to realize that Legilimency had played a part. He practiced what Bellatrix had taught him, and began to insulate his thoughts as well as he could as he walked down the last path necessary to enter the Faer Land.

He didn't know exactly at which point the forest became something more. The shifts were subtle, at first, and then he was there, and there seemed to be no way back. Slytherin was behind him—Draco sensed it and turned to face his master, guarding himself the best he could.

Slytherin said nothing to him, and Draco lowered Lord Voldemort's remains to the ground. He didn't even glance at them. "Why," asked Salazar Slytherin, "did you not tell me that the mudblood girl has a double?"

Draco's eyes widened. "A double?"

The boy didn't know, that much was clear to Slytherin. At least, at first, he didn't know. He put the pieces together very quickly, however, and Slytherin watched the process, easily gleaning the information from his expression. "So, she has traveled in time, and created a temporal flux that is responsible for her other form. And she created another for my heir… How interesting."

Draco barely noticed the inefficacy of his mental armor in light of this information. "She's been—resurrected? The other one?" The even scarier one, he managed not to say.

"Yes, by my heir."

"By—the incubus."

"He was an incubus?" Slytherin savored this. "It requires a great will to become an incubus—an entirely unconscious will."

"Yes, I know all that," said Draco, almost impatiently.

"Promising," the tall man murmured, his black eyes flickering like a dark flame. Draco waited. At length, Slytherin looked up. "Do you wish to see the resurrection of this man you so fear?"

Draco didn't know quite how to respond to this.

"I told you I would reward you for your trouble," he said. "Your father will not need to fear Lord Voldemort. You may go."

Draco was far too adept at taking opportunities the moment they presented themselves to avoid this one. He walked back towards Mabon, and it was Slytherin's doing that he was out of the Faer Land so quickly.

Now Slytherin looked down at the bones before him. Under his gaze the bones sank, very slowly, into the ground. After the disappeared they went deeper still, reaching towards the elixir of chaos that fed the Faer Land, past natural law and magical law. And then they reached up; Slytherin could feel it even before a long white hand emerged from the ground.

Lord Voldemort rose from the ground, shadows descending to cloak his inhuman form. He was nothing like Slytherin expected—he couldn't have guessed this monster from the boy. Things were so much more interesting when you came back to them after a great passing of time. Life was so much more pleasant when it was full of secrets to be broken apart and exposed to his knowledge, his will, and his power.

"Like two ends of a telescope, you and your counterpart" Slytherin marveled as he circuited around the white, shadow-clothed form in front of him. "And you the bigger end. I must say, despite the clues, I didn't expect anything half as exciting—no soul! No soul at all, how wonderful."

"Salazar Slytherin," intoned the pale, inhuman face.

"Son of my sons."

The monster closed his eyes. "And now our work will be completed."

Slytherin grinned wickedly. Yes, this one. This one was perfect.

.((0)).

Mione sat on the table near the window to their room; it looked out onto Diagon Alley. She was wrapped in one of the bedsheets, warming herself in the sunlight coming in through the windows. She could see, in the bottom corner of the window, the reflection of their bed. Tom was naked under the blankets, one bare leg uncovered. She felt warmer than she knew it was, warm inside. She really hadn't known… of all the things she'd known in her decade of death, she hadn't known she would get him back. Yet she had. And it was as if their first moment now and their last moment then had been pulled seamlessly together by an invisible thread. All that newborn hope and promise that had been destroyed had come back with them, for them. She turned towards the bed, feeling suffused with a soft glow, reaching out a mental hand to stroke Tom's naked form. She was happy—happier than she had ever been, in this life or any of her others.


	4. Chapter 4

Jeanne—Thanks a bunch for your review. I think what you're seeing is just a consequence of Tom being alive again. He's kind of the sort that will always have some plan or goal or ambition, which in the last story was to get Mione resurrected and the Boundary broken, and he essentially achieved and that points to how amazing he is, seeing as he was, you know, a freaking ghost. But now he can come back to all those ambitions that were fermenting when he and Mione came back to the future. And I think in a way he's excited Slytherin's back, even though he realized quite quickly that they couldn't work together, that he couldn't simply serve someone else's plans. And yeah, Voldemort has no soul, he's basically just the avatar, and yes he has no power per se (the idea of power in this fic is important, think of it as a Neitsche will to power thing)—but he's a power suck, a black hole of power, destroying everything around him to give him the illusion of being powerful, which I think was Voldemort's whole deal in the first place. And you're right, Tom STILL doesn't have much use for love, even when he's in it. This is not Tom and Mione make babies and wuv each other, I have this idea of them having this grand dark adventure and kind of feeding off of each other obsessively… anyways.

Anonymous—oh, you update soon people!

Blindfaithoperadiva—I'll let you know on the other thing (thinking of working on my book on a private blog), but yeah I like Voldi different—but he does remember everything Tom did, up to the point of the back-to-the-futureness. I mean, that was the idea, that love (without that last moment where Mione decides not to follow the plan) was what ruined him and allowed himself to be taken over by the avatar again. But just for conceptualization's sake, Voldemort has to be different from Tom, and the same with Mione/Hermione.

Rosiline—thanks again!

TheCrescentMoonWriter—Yeah, Voldemort back is really not good. Really not good. He will do some really not good things. Muahahahaha.

So, OK, what does a fanfiction writer, me in particular, want from a review? I mean, besides many of them (I'm not talking to you guys above!). But, yeah, so here I am writing something that pretty much can't ever be published and does nothing really but waste my time-- well, I'm practicing, here, really. And I would really like feedback on that, to figure out how to be better as a writer, storyteller, etc. So, you know, I'd like to know what's working, but also, what's not. So feel free, if you don't like something or another, to tell me. I've agreed with pretty much every criticism that I've gotten, and it's good-- it helps me. And the easiest thing to do when you review is just list the things you like, a funny line or something someone did, etc... Because it's also good to know what works, what's popular with readers. Anyway. The more you know (cue song)

Chapter 4

Light is the left hand of darkness

And Darkness the right hand of light

Two are one, life and death, lying

Together like lovers in kemmer

Like hands joined together

Like the hand and the way.

-Ursula LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness

Hermione had considered flooing Ginny and talking to her before anyone else, but she decided that would be cowardly. She had to face up to everything sooner or later. Up until Slytherin, Hermione had thought of confronting her mistakes as something she would do later. But now she had to talk to Harry and Ron, and there were things to do—another dark power had risen in the world, and it was her fault.

Only it wasn't. She hadn't let a particle of Slytherin into the Faer Land, she was utterly sure of it. And, after she'd gone to Hogwarts to inform an unbelieving Headmistress McGonnagal that Salazar Slytherin was resurrected and the Faer Land was open again, she began to put some pieces together. She remembered that Draco had been with her in the Faer Land. And he shouldn't have been able to—The Blue King told her that only those people who were capable of breaking the boundary could get past it. So it was obvious, really. It was Draco.

Strange, though. The one thing she remained convinced of was that Draco had feared Lord Voldemort. Surely he'd fear Slytherin as well. And now, now that she was on the street to Harry and Ron's flat, she realized something even more terrible: surely Slytherin would resurrect Lord Voldemort. He was his heir. Hermione brought her hand to her mouth as she briefly paused in her walk. What had she done? But it wasn't her. If she hadn't done it, Draco would have resurrected him just the same, and he'd have control over the Boundary as well. Hermione decided to accept this justification. There was already enough for her to feel guilty about.

She walked up the flight of stone steps and rang for their flat. Harry, thank goodness it was Harry, answered. "It's Hermione," she said over the intercom.

"Shit!" she heard, and the intercom turned off. Barely three moments later, Harry was at the door, and had engulfed her in a hug. "I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead, and I hadn't talked to you in weeks. Are you all right?"

She shrugged. "I locked Slytherin into the Boundary."

"What?"

"It was Mione Potter, you know, the other me, who sent him back to the Faer Land. Because she was resurrected. By Tom Riddle. Who I resurrected. I—" she laughed, and didn't dare look at Harry's face, she couldn't help but laugh at her explanation—"I opened the Boundary."

"I know," said Harry, grasping her by the shoulder. "About the Boundary… and the incubus."

"You figured that out?"

"We're not Aurors for nothing."

"Yeah," she said weakly. "Is Ron home?"

There was hesitation here. "Yes."

Hermione shook her head. "I know, Harry. I know."

"I mean, I'm sure he wants to talk to you."

"He's upset? I mean, of course he is… but how is he?"

Harry didn't answer this.

"I think Slytherin will bring Lord Voldemort back."

"What?" Harry was confused by the sudden turn of conversation but understood immediately what she was saying. "I mean… Oh, damn… Of course he will."

"But that's all right because we can just unlock Merlin from the rock."

"What?" This was genuine confusion.

Hermione knew her mind was a few hundred steps past where they were right now, but the words fell out of her mouth anyway. "Think about it, Harry. Do you know anything about Merlin's death? I certainly don't. No one does—it's famous for being so mysterious, isn't it? It might be a mystery because it never happened. There were no confirmed sightings of him, there never were. And since his wizarding history tells you nothing about how he might have died, you turn to the muggle myth. Locked in a rock by the Lady of the Lake. It would certainly explain a lot."

Harry did think about it. "Are you saying Merlin might still be alive, somehow?"

"I guess… I don't know, I just get a feeling about Merlin, something about Merlin in particular…" she focused her eyes as intently as she could on her mind's object. "I don't know why, but… there it is. Merlin."

.((0)).

Terry returned to his flat with a bottle of Ogden's Finest Firewhisky. He'd hardly had any time in the last week to go to the Impcap Wing—the Department had been in overdrive in response to all the recent events. They were responsible for being the brains behind The Defense—the web of spells the Ministry had been putting into place to avoid detection by muggles. Terry was in charge of dealing with the Creature Problem, since he knew more than anyone about the nature of their change. Terry didn't like where he sensed The Ministry was going with the inquiry—he'd been hearing about legislation going into effect to criminalize those of the Inhuman Empires, particularly the Giants and the Dragons. Terry had been on the side of the Inhuman Empires from day one. The Dragons had shown themselves to be surprisingly politic. The Giants were… well, a bit like they'd always been, but surely if the wizards and the Empires could come to some sort of understanding—reparations (Terry hadn't realized how naïve he was until he learned that the Ministry didn't think any wrong had been done to the Inhuman Creatures), or something along those lines, the Giants could be persuaded to at least restrain their violent tendencies. The problem was, from what Terry had been seeing from the Ministry, the wizards of England at least were not likely to show any reasonableness to the Inhuman Empires.

It was clear to Terry that if the Ministry would do nothing, the rest of the wizarding community must. That was the only reason he'd participated for so long. He could get a feel for the politics of the situation, perhaps make a few contacts—he'd sent Yryll a message a few days ago, but he'd received no response.

Then the first ads for the Conscription appeared in The Daily Prophet. It was only nine days after the Boundary had been broken. Terry had gone to work that day and perused the newspaper over lunch. The first ad was on the inside fold of the paper; it depicted three wizards standing with their wands outstretched, solemn expressions of their faces. "Protect the Secret" was emblazoned over their heads. Terry finished his lunch, went back to his office, and resigned. He tried not to think about how much bigger his income was here than it was at St. Mungo's.

Terry wandered into his flat and Accioed a tumbler from a cabinet. He considered his kitchen and realized that he hadn't seen his flat by daylight in a long, long time. First St. Mungo's and now the Ministry—well, at least he hadn't seen Padma for over a week. Sure, he still remembered exactly how close to jasmine the perfume she wore was, but at least he hadn't had to work with the scent suffusing his nose. Terry looked down at his hand and was surprised to find he had filled his tumbler without realizing it. "Good thinking, hands," he said, and emptied the glass. He went to the toilet to splash some water on his face, taking his glasses off as he entered the room. For this reason, he didn't immediately notice the swirling message left on his mirror, and when he rose, rubbing water out of his eyes, he gave an exclamation before replacing his glasses.

It was a water scroll—the kind that was often left for Yryll. This time it was Yryll who's written it, and it was meant for Terry. He translated: "You have been chosen on my recommendation to be ambassador to the Mermish Queenship. I will arrive when you drop three cups of water into your sink. Please separate the cup droppings by intervals of at least thirty seconds. Regards, Yryll."

Terry blinked at the scroll and drained the rest of his Firewhisky. Well, he thought. He always had wanted to learn more about Mermish culture. He filled his tumbler with water, and dropped it neatly into his sink. He smiled, filled it again, counted out his waiting time, and dropped a second cup in. He repeated the process a third time and waited.

He waited for a rather long time, actually. He wasn't in the bathroom at all when Yryll finally arrived. He heard her calling out his name while he was in the kitchen. He went to his bathroom to find her sitting in a tub full of water.

"How on earth did you get in here?" asked Terry, looking at her lazily crossed siryn's legs and the clear water they sat in.

"We finally have access to all of the non-Mermish magic that we used to practice," said Yryll. "Most of us know little of it, since there was little point in learning, but I was always curious. This is just a bit of it."

"So this is wizard magic?"

"Not exactly. Traveling via water was a kind of magic that… well, it was an old magic, a sort of fairyish magic. People say it came from Nimue."

"The Lady of the Lake?"

"Yes, our great teacher."

"I see."

"Will you be the human ambassador, Mr. Boot?"

"I'm not sure I have the authority."

"Don't you work for the Ministry?" she asked archly, and Terry remembered he'd never exactly spoken well of the Ministry to Yryll.

"Actually," he said, "I resigned today."

"Even better," she said.

.((0)).

He still hadn't come. Yilander could see that, looking at the tilted spire of his former home. If he did come—and he would, Yilander was sure of it—Slytherin would be able to find him. He may not want to; Yilander would not stand here to fight, because there was no way to win here. So he would go, and depart from the Faer Land. He had looked out onto the mundane world for long enough. Now, he would go there.

He walked over to his dragon. It waited for him in the trees, long-bodied and blue; it had been his only possession when he came into the Faer Land so long ago. It had been a doll, a poor little doll made of sticks from the Blue Forest. He had been a boy, and had not seen the old world since, except for through the windows and portholes he opened from the Faer Land.

He always knew he would only ever be king of the Boundary, ever since Salazar Slytherin had departed on his mortal night. It had been an accident, a chance. When Rowena Ravenclaw killed her former lover and gave his ashes to the air, the hold over the Boundary had been unbound from Slytherin's hand and rushed back to the land. Yilander had been the first object in its way, and it kissed him and entered him and made him king. But it was not his to keep. It whispered to him the names of all those who might break it, and he warned them not to break the Boundary, satisfied that Salazar Slytherin was a more terrifying threat than any he could make.

It had been a mistake, to warn the girl.

.((0)).

Holding hands, having a companion in bed, the reassurance of touch—these were the things neither Mione nor Tom had known for a decade of death, save for Tom's reaquaintance with the living Hermione. But that had been different—she hadn't been Mione. As much as she might be the same person, clever and secretive and headstrong and willful—there was some missing component. Love, perhaps. Tom wouldn't know, he never thought on things like love.

They were holding hands—and they hadn't done so often in Tom's time. It didn't feel like it looked on other people—for them a comfort, a habit. Her hand in his and his in hers was electrical—he could feel her magic, and intertwined with it the infinite shades of her new gift. For Mione, it wasn't the way it had been with Ron; he was of such a different temperament than her, and what she remembered had been new and embarrassing and awkward. She caught Tom's eye as they walked through the crowd along Spuistraat under the low gray sky of Amsterdam. She had transfigured one of their sheets into a green coat that matched her sheath. Tom had stowed his wizarding cloak inside his satchel and removed the tell-tale Hogwarts insignia from his blazer. They still looked rather out of place, but in the thick of Amsterdam it went largely unnoticed.

"There are two things we need to find," said Tom, looking down at her.

"A cure to resurrection."

"Absolutely. And immortality."

Mione arched an eyebrow and smiled. "Immortality, why am I not surprised?"

"I'd say it's a fairly indispensible weapon at this point."

"Indeed. In the meantime, let's just pick up the first key now that we're in the neighborhood."

They were going to visit Maria Vandergroot, now Maria Janssen, the unwitting possessor of one of the three keys to The Never-Ending Library. Mione did not so much know of her as remember her—from her father, and her grandparents, and a boy who had briefly been her friend in school. The key had been left in the family in the form of an heirloom pin, a bit of hair twisted and mounted under glass. No one seemed to notice the hair was in a Moebius loop, and connected to itself. The last member of the family to know it for what it was had been was Maria's grandmother, and even she hadn't known the hair had come from Merlin. Tom wanted to steal the pin; Maria was a muggle and it would be absurdly simple to apparate into the house and take it. Mione had a different plan, and one that she had insisted they take.

They veered down a sidestreet near Spui Square, and Mione eyes the both of them critically. Then, she took out her wand—the new one she'd acquired at Ollivander's all those years ago, the one that matched her new powers. She put it through a neat series of passes and transfigured Tom's school uniform into a grey suit, and outfitted herself in a black business suit. She hastily tied her hair up, and they made their way to Maria's house. She was home; her husband was at work; Mione had checked all this.

She took a few moments to answer the door. A television set was turned off; there was rustling, and the woman answered the door a bit breathlessly, her hair pulled into a hasty pony tail. She was a rather ordinary-looking woman with intelligent brown eyes and a wide mouth. She smiled upon seeing them, and Mione smiled back.

"Hello, Mrs. Janssen," she said easily, thankful that nearly everyone in Amsterdam spoke English. "We're from the Enlightenment Society of Leeds."

"Oh?" said the woman, curious.

"I'm sorry to call on you like this, but my partner and I were already in Amsterdam for a conference, and we decided it would be best to visit you in person."

Now she was skeptical. "Excuse me, but what are you here about?" she asked, her accent underlining her English with irony.

"Well, you see, one of our graduate students has been going over some old itemized documents concerning the goods of John Locke, and it seems that a lock of his hair fell into your family's hands—it was listed by a grandson upon his death, and the student managed to trace it to your family." She smiled again. "You see, although we are primarily concerned with missing documents, we do get excited about biological leftovers like this—you know, in the age of DNA analysis we can't let these things go by."

Maria looked satisfied by the explanation, but she still stood in her doorway. "You think I have it, is that right? A piece of John Locke's hair?"

"Yes. Perhaps you pass down heirlooms in your family? People often keep bits of hair in jewelry. It might be in a locket or—"

Maria waved her hand. "I do have something, yes. And you want it?"

"Very much," said Mione. "We're prepared to negotiate."

.((0)).

Harry hadn't even gone back up to the apartment; he'd decided it was better to let Hermione and Ron have the rest of the night to themselves. Besides, he wanted to go to Luna's house, where King Arthur was currently staying. Luna seemed to deal better with him than anyone else; nothing he said was strange to her, and her quick wits allowed her to understand him considerable better than Harry or Ron.

Ron had been expecting Hermione, apparently. He came out of the pantry when he heard the door, saw her, and gave a short nod—as if he has checked a chore off of a to-do list. "You're all right then," he said. "Knew you would be—Luna found you walking to Hogwarts."

She nodded, staring at him. It was really amazing how together he was, considering how emotional about things he tended to get—and there was a hardness underlying his expression, a businesslikeness to his inquiries. But considering what he had to be angry about, his composure was incredible.

"So, how did you do it?"

"What?"

"Slytherin."

"I…" she considered her hands. "I have power over the Boundary now—Harry told me you know about it, that I opened it. I locked him in." She couldn't mention her other self. Not now. She wouldn't lie, there would be no more lying, but she just couldn't reveal this to him yet.

"You locked him in," said Ron. There was a sad little smile—the pride he felt for his girl, knowing she wasn't exactly his girl anymore. He turned away. "I'll just make some tea," he said abruptly, and turned on his heel towards the kitchen.

She listened to him putter around, reminded of a night many years ago when he'd nervously gotten tea together for Hagrid—an idiot, she was an idiot, who even had a childhood sweetheart these days and she'd just gone off and—

Ron re-entered the room with two steaming mugs. He set them on the table and looked at her expectantly. "All right. Talk." The expression on his face wasn't unkind, exactly, but there was no compassion to it.

She heaved out a boulder of a sigh, relieving herself of a pang of guilt. "What can I say?" she asked without expecting an answer. What she had done, how she had behaved over the past few days was unpardonable. She'd been driven by an unexpected fuel towards destinations she hadn't entirely wished to go to. "I'm so sorry. I'm just, I can't… undo any of it."

Ron glared into the empty space behind her. "The thing is, I understand exactly what happened. I've had a lot of time to figure it out. There was… you remember when you came home, after you'd found those books at the Hogwarts Library? I guess that was the first time you saw him—Tom Riddle. An incubus." He looked her in the eye, now. An unreadable look, not hateful—almost a sort of hard understanding. "I mean, I don't understand why you didn't tell anyone—but maybe that was his influence. And then you found out that you had gone back in time, and died. Which I'm still a bit unclear on, temporily but—well, I could forgive a lot of things from a person who'd learned that. And you also learned that when you went back in time you… were… and Lo—Tom Riddle." His face turned bright red, and he took a moment to compose himself. "And… that is something I don't think I'll ever understand. But… you didn't do it. Not _you_. So, whatever happened… It's hard. I don't know if I could… I don't even know about you, if you would, if you want—" he broke off, and Hermione was horrified to see his eyes fill with tears. But they didn't fall. "Did you incarnate him?"

Oh, why did Ron have to be such a good detective? This was the last of all possible questions that she wanted to face right now. She didn't trust herself to speak, so she nodded.

He didn't move for a few minutes. "I thought you maybe managed to destroy him… Harry and I found Malfoy trying to." He looked concerned. Hermione wasn't really sure why. She'd expected disappointed and angry. "Are you all right?"

It took a moment to sink in. Oh. An incubus could force himself on his subject. "I'm all right," she said quickly.

He nodded brusquely. "The thing I don't understand… is Malfoy."

Hermione closed her eyes. He knew. She could feel him looking at her and didn't want to see the expression on his face.

"Tell me he slipped you Amortentia or something, Hermione."

She buried her face in her hands and shook her head.

"What happened?" Ron asked plaintively.

She lifted her head up and sighed, blinking. "When I slept with him, he'd kidnapped me, to make me tell him about the Boundary. I slept with him to keep me from asking questions, and I went to sleep after. So that—Tom could help me escape from there."

Ron looked shocked. "Merlin, Hermione."

"I know, I know. But—but, I was tired, and there was the Faer Land, and Tom Riddle, and I just—I don't know it was just right there to do and I did it." She shook her head. "I'd take it back. I'd take it back and take my chances, now. But I didn't."

"Oh, come on, Hermione, it can't have just been that. There's no way you would have any reason to think Malfoy could be—distracted by you, unless there was already something there. And you didn't tell me about being with him in Mabon."

"That wasn't—" but he was right. He had her.

"Were you attracted to him?"

She didn't answer. She didn't have to. Not with the expression on her face.

"I see," said Ron, standing up. "I love you, Hermione. So long as you're alive I want you in my life. And maybe I could… forgive you. But. Now…" and he shrugged, and attempted a smile, but it fell.

"I love you too, Ron," said Hermione, her eyes full of tears, and they _were_ falling.


	5. Chapter 5

Holy Crikey, guys, this was NOT what I meant by intermittent updates. I've been super busy, gotten off track, been taking too many planes, and come back just in time for the economy to crash down around my ears. Hope you guys are doing okay with all this crap. Oh, and I'm slowly posting this at livejournal: vasilisa23./. I am SO LAZY, though. If anyone wants to edit or Britpick a chapter from ETSCBM, let me know.

Ankoku Dezaia—So there's two Hermiones now, both of whom are in this chapter. HERmione is the one from The Other Hermione, who brought him back and cheated on Ron and has become obsessed with Merlin. I know, kick in the balls. When I started writing ETSCBM I never thought I'd have to deal with the fall-out of the T/Hr romance.

Blindfaithoperadiva—Well, things get very murky here. Tom's not exactly lovey-dovey, and as you'll see in this chapter Mione's gone through a bit of a change as well. As for the Voldemort/Slytherin stuff, that is going to be very underfoot, but when Voldemort makes his appearance I guarantee it will shock you.

Blackpants—that's a real compliment, I think, that I made you vacillate on the character like that. And yes, the plot with Merlin will slowly thicken. There are hints in the Rowena Ravenclaw chapter that will tell you important things.

Jeanne—Oh, yeah, the first chapter is up on livejournal: vasilisa23./. I have no idea what commercial that is, hmm. The closest I've got to the Faer Lands is the Changing Lands in Charles de Lint stuff. You'll see in this chapter what the ambassador to the Merpeople does, as for the other stuff, it's coming. I know ultimately where this is going, but as I go on, it's very hazy crazy. This is totally my crackfic, absolutely anything goes here.

NinjetteX—the switching is will be in a different, pornier fanfic. Kidding. I like this especially in America bit. Is it because of all the Christians who don't believe in dinosaurs? Speaking of which, oh, holy Gaia, Asia, take me back now. It was not good to come back now. No, it was, because we don't want people in office who don't believe in dinosaurs, right? Right? You're totally right on in your reading of Draco, like completely. As for the dragons… you'll see. Thanks for the thoughts on Ron, I feel the same as you about JKR's treatment of him. As for Alicia, she'll be back, in all her wrench-in-the-gears glory. Soon.

Hoshi-chan 1—sorry it's been so long!

Sad Stephen—thanks, this will be my complete and utter crackly crackfic. I might go pretty nuts with the Inhuman Empire culture and whatnot, you'll get a taste of Mermish culture in this one. Oh, and Slytherin sealed in the Boundary just means Slytherin stuck in the Faer Land.

Inthenameof—and now you have the SLOW updates. Again, sorry.

GoldenTresses91—Thank you! I know, this thing is freaking YEARS sucked out of my life, and yours, so… yay? Anyways here's the next chapter:

Sea Change

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes;

nothing of him that doth fade

But doth suffer a sea change

Into something rich and strange.

Shakespeare, The Tempest

It was a strange thing, thought Hermione as she put a quill to parchment, to search for yourself-- literally. In order to send an owl post, she would need to know her counterpart's general whereabouts—and Mione Potter was the only person she knew of who could give her a definite answer to her inquiry. The thing was, it turned out to be absurdly easy. All she had to do was perform a Point Me spell, modified to have two arrows so that it wouldn't have to decide which self to point at. Mione's arrow pointed at a thirty-degree angle away from her own. How bizarre, that such a conundrum could be so easily solved. Now she had it sorted, she had only to write out her inquiry.

.((0)).

The evening stars seemed very far, in Romania, made strange by distance—Hermione Granger had never traveled past France. Now Mione Potter was in Romania with Tom Riddle, both of them a little bit more than simply alive—and the world was theirs. Here the wizards lived even more on the underneath than they did in England—they looked quite like gypsies. In fact gypsies had derived their fashions from the Romanian wizard community—and here too there was a difference, because the wizards _did_ interact with muggles—but only gypsies. All others were utterly distrusted, which was a funny reversal to Mione, who had witnessed the continental disgust for gypsies as a teenager in France. And there was another wrinkle-- Mione and Tom were both biologically eighteen years of age, but a decade of death had rendered them well past biological counting. Both of them were occasionally surprised when people treated them as the very young couple they physically were—their innkeeper has asked if they wanted separate rooms, and looked at them with some disapproval when they answered in the negative.

Mione didn't know where the third key was at all; the second key she wasn't sure about, but from what she could construct from a series of people's memories, it was last seen around here.

She and Tom came to stop in front of a monument inscribed with the names of civilians shot during an uprising against the Ceausescu Government there in Sibiu. "Ceausescu—who was that?" Tom asked her.

"Communist dictator," answered Mione. "He was after your time."

"Muggle politics are so banal," Tom opined.

"If by banal you mean less colorfully murdered I take your meaning."

She turned to see him looking at her in wry amusement. "You're so much more flippant with your ethics than I remember," he said, tucking a curl behind her ear. "It suits you."

"That's what happens when you fall in love with a teenage Lord Voldemort and get poisoned by the most beloved wizard of your time," she answered dryly, causing his smile to widen.

Mione glanced at the list of names, running her finger down the rows. "The one whose memories I have, the one who had seen the second key, she was killed on that day." Her finger paused in success. "Luminitsa Petulengro."

"What good does it do you to find her name on a monument?"

Mione's eyes grew distant. "She had a friend. Petsha. He left, that night. Made his way to America. His mother told him, after the government fell, about the monument. He always wanted to come back and see her name."

"Does he know about the key?"

"He was the one who stole it, from the gypsy caravan. It was just a prank to him. He didn't know that it was considered a sacred duty for the wives of the Salo family to guard it. Vodoma Salo was killed by her husband when he discovered it to be missing. Petsha never knew this—it was his and Luminitsa's plaything, and they lost it by the riverbank."

"So we go to the riverbank and cast a summoning charm."

"Accio is a derivative of name magic, and the keys are nameless."

"I presume you know what it looks like?"

"An ouroboros made of silver. It looks like a bracelet-- only if you wear it, it undulates around your wrist."

"Well, then, it's simple enough to cast an Imago Locator Spell."

"I imagine it's been carried downriver by now. It was so close to the water where they lost it. We'll need to pick up the trail, I think."

Tom put his hands in his pockets and regarded the night sky. "A niffler."

"A niffler?" she replied incredulously.

"It's made of silver, isn't it? They do breed nifflers to follow specific precious metals and gems."

"They do," Mione agreed slowly. "But… they need to follow the scent, don't they? We have nothing that might have captured the scent."

"Except for your memory," said Tom.

"Human memories, tattered by time," said Mione.

"A Pensieve always remembers things better than the bearer of the memory," said Tom.

Hermione grinned. "There's a reason I fell in love with you."

.((0)).

Terry Boot looked down into the brackish water of the Thames. "This," he said aloud, "is going to be disgusting. And cold. Cold, and disgusting." According to Yrryl, the Council of the Mermish Queenship was meeting here. Of all places.

Dutifully, he chewed the gillyweed he'd gotten from Neville—it was primo gillyweed from Southeast Asia. It lasted for five hours per mouthful and had the additional quality of purifying water going into the gills. Terry only wished it would purify the water wholesale. He was quite looking forward to a bath when he got back to his flat. Of course, before the bath he was going to have to climb back out of the Thames and into Charing Cross sodding wet. It was times like these he really wished he had an invisibility cloak.

Yryll poked her head above water, at the appointed time thank Merlin. She smiled placidly up at him. "Hello, Mr. Boot," she said, her English clear and posh post-Boundary.

"Hello, Yryll. I don't suppose you know any underwater warming spells, do you?"

"I do, actually," she said. "But also, I brought this." She threw a laminated box up to him. Terry quickly sliced it open at wandpoint.

"What on earth is this?" Terry asked, holding up what seemed to be longjohns made out of rubber."

"Muggles call it a wetsuit. I believe it will be more comfortable than your clothing. I would have brought flippers as well, but I believe the gillyweed will take care of that."

"Gdoat," said Terry.

"The pronunciation will be easier when you have gills," she replied encouragingly.

"Speaking of which," Terry managed as a sudden half-suffocating feeling descended upon him. According to Neville, _this_ gillyweed should allow him to breathe air as well as water. He managed a few gulps of air, but it was entirely unpleasant. He took out his wand and managed a silent switching charm—talking would be impossible, he surmised from the state of his lungs. The wetsuit clung to him almost uncomfortably, but the wind that had bitten through his shirt moments ago didn't penetrate the thick skin of the wetsuit. He eyed his clothes, wondering what to do with them.

"The box, Mr. Boot," suggested Yryll.

Terry struggled for a bit more air and managed to nod. He shoved the clothing into the box and swished his wand in the air again, and without further ado dove into the water to avoid the discomfort of breathing air.

The water wasn't nearly as cold as he was expecting. It was murky and clogged with sediment, however—his newly made gills drew it in suspiciously. Terry blinked—rather, a clear membrane descended from beneath his eyelid to protect his eyes from the water. He turned to Yryll. "Where are we going?" he asked, but his words came out in a useless stream of bubbles.

"Ig Myrl," said Yryll. No bubbles displaced her words. Only Mermish, Terry recognized—it had been a common phrase during his sessions practicing language.

"Sisi Myrl," Terry replied, and found his gills almost unconsciously taking on half the burden of talking. Little Mermish was his reply, as it had been during his sessions, and Yryll smiled. He didn't feel much like smiling, however. How on earth was he going to understand what was going on if translation to English was impossible?

But Yryll had an answer for that as well. She opened her hand to show Terry a finely wrought spiral shell in her hand, made of sea-glass. A chain of misshapen, grey-pink pearls was affixed to it. She put it over his head.

"I feel so manly," said Terry despite his knowledge that English was useless underwater, and found that instead of a stream of bubbles, his mouth and gills were working in tandem, as they had during his brief exhibition of Mermish.

"A Babble Shell," explained Yryll.

Terry inspected the shell—there was a fine vein of Mermish script that followed the curl of its spiral. "I take it this is some kind of translation device?"

"It works out of the water, too," said Yryll. "A gift from the Queen."

Terry looked up. "The Queen?"

She smiled again. "A token of gratitude for your audience."

"I thought I'd be talking to a council or something," Terry said, rather nervously.

Yryll took his hand and began to swim downwards. "Don't worry, we mermish don't have your silly class system. The Queen talks to everyone. She's just very direct." Terry was glad of her hand as they continued downwards, as the water darkened. She began to swim faster, and Terry kicked his newly flippered legs to keep pace, but the box under the crook of his other arm was hardly aerodynamic.

In front of him, what seemed like a long way away, was a faint green glow. It made a silhouette out of his companion, who leaned towards the light as if she was leaning towards warmth—which she was, he discovered. He could feel a faint pulse of heat from whatever the source of the greenish light was.

He discovered what the source was sooner than he thought he would—a gigantic green bubble floated in the middle of the Thames. It housed what looked like a gigantic open clamshell, in which a pearlescent building sat.

"Wow," said Terry.

"The Queen's house," said Yryll. "It can travel anywhere—and the water's much nicer inside the bubble."

"Fantastic," he said.

"I'm glad you like it."

The membrane of the bubble was mere feet away now, and Yryll swam towards it at an unabated rate. Terry couldn't help but wince as she penetrated it, and closed his eyes as he propelled himself forward to do the same. A slimy sort of feeling peeled down his body as he went through the membrane, but he was rewarded immediately by warm, clean water. His gills drew it in greedily. He followed Yryll to the entrance, and stopped as she did. She turned to him.

"You go in," she said. "The Mermish make their own introductions."

"Really?" Terry said, gulping. "Um, could you at least tell me her name?"

"It's hers to give you," she said, now fully grinning at his nervousness. "Really, don't worry. Good luck, Mr. Boot." She kissed him on the cheek, and he slowly shook his head and tried to sigh. It manifested in an effusion of bubbles. Yryll laughed. It was a weird, musical sound. Water falling on water. Terry gave her a last look before he entered.

The interior was simpler and smaller than he'd expected, although the wall he faced was lined with seven arched corridors leading to several different places within the building. The Queen was waiting for him, perched on a pearlescent outcropping in the middle of the floor. This and several similar ones curved in an arc before it were the room's sole furnishings.

With blue-black hair and deep blue skin, The Queen looked very different from the pale-skinned, green and purple-haired mermaids Terry was used to. She was of a more Southern variety—her features were more human, and perhaps because of this, she looked strikingly beautiful.

"Erm, hello," Terry managed, feeling spectacularly idiotic. The Mermish lack of ceremony had always seemed so interesting when he read about it, but it left him with very little in the way of breaking the ice with a well-time Your Majesty or I'm Honored.

"You are Terry Boot."

"I am."

"My name is Lamial."

"Pleased to meet you."

"You are the first human I have met."

"Oh?"

"I understand my people owe you much thanks."

"To be honest, it was Hermione Granger who was responsible for the breaking of the Boundary."

"Ah. But you and Padma Patil assisted her, yes?"

"That's more or less true. We'd wanted to go about it more carefully."

"Then you are safe from us."

"Safe?" Such a good word, such a worrying context.

"Yes, safe. I suppose you think wizards have nothing to fear from the Inhuman Empires. Yet, wizards, like all of us, even the Unicorns, die."

"This is true, but—"

"But we had no magic. Before the boundary broke, we had none, because we were restricted to the Mermish language. Hence your necklace."

"Right. Thanks for that, by the way."

"We have magic now."

"Nimue's magic."

"Yes. Do you know that water is one of the five exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration? You can play with it, you can transmute it, you can draw it from one place to another, but you cannot produce pure water from nothing."

"That's not true," said Terry. "Aguamenti—"

"Aguamenti transports water from its nearest location to your wand—and not pure water, necessarily. You may have noticed the dehydration that accompanies a lonely practice session. Wizards have no true power over water. It is utterly under Mermish control—now that we have recovered Nimue's magical language, which is written, and untranslatable. Now, we control all the water in the world. We can bind it to our will, steal it from your cups, even squeeze every drop from your bodies."

Terry said nothing, thinking only of the implications of this.

"If we did not wish to negotiate with you, we wouldn't even tell you, Mr. Boot. I say this not as a threat, but as a way of warning. You may know much about us as magical creatures, but now that we have gained those powers that made us Empires, all those who consider themselves Inhuman are now an unknown quantity. You would be unwise not to think of what is owed us after centuries of the crime your kind visited on us."

"Salazar Slytherin," said Terry. "He did this to you."

"Salazar Slytherin is dead, and cannot repay us. You can."

Terry made the underwater equivalent of a sigh, which produced such a strange sensation in his gills that he momentarily forgot his words. "There should be—something, I know. But I can't represent every wizard, and… not to malign wizards in general, but there is a reason Hermione Granger came up with C.R.A.P., and I don't know that—"

"We Mermish don't wish any concessions. Nor do the unicorns."

Terry looked up, thrown. "O.K. O.K., but I don't understand. Why did you call me here if—"

"Because the Dragons do. The Giants are too angry, now, even to think of it. And the Centaurs have said nothing, but they are cunning, and might wish for something better than concessions."

"Is this another warning?"

"Yes, but a larger one than you think. We have no wish of repayment or revenge or apologies, but we think it is fair if our comrades do. We will stand by them. And, of all the Inhuman Empires, we are the ones who could put an end to the wizarding world."

"An end?" repeated Terry.

"We could kill every one of you—but for you and your peers, of course, who released us all from bondage."

"Are you—" Terry didn't finish his question. She was. She was quite, quite serious. He furrowed his brows and considered. "It wouldn't be an end, though. Not to _all _wizards. There would still be us, I mean if we're still _safe_, and muggleborns—"

"But the price of your crime would have been paid, and every generation of wizards ever after would know the danger of crossing us."

"Every generation of wizards ever after might want revenge in kind," Terry pointed out.

"We might never have been free, Mr. Boot. It has been _centuries_. Do you really think a slave who has been freed is afraid to wreak vengeance, when it is finally an option, when the very powers that enslaved him to begin with still linger? It might, after all, be our only chance to teach your kind a lesson. But we Mermish do not want it to come to that. I tell you the ultimate price so that you can avoid it."

Terry tried to sigh again, and produced only bubbles. "Yryll was right," he said at last. "You are direct."

.((0)).

When Mione woke that night, she discovered the bed to be empty. This didn't worry her. She knew exactly where Tom was. A portal to the Faer Land was only a few miles away, deep in the Black Forest. She wasn't even sure she cared. Tom was too smart to face Salazar Slytherin again. No, he would linger at the periphery to study it. But it wasn't just this that was responsible for her indifference—it was that damnable coldness that had come back with her from the veil. Nothing moved her, now. She had no sadness, no joy, she felt no sense of injustice when she saw wrongs committed. Her response to everything now was the same: It is what it is. This was her eternal response.

Except for Tom. When she looked at Tom, part of that seventeen-year-old girl she'd been returned. She touched him and felt that giddy sensation of looking over a steep cliff with wings of her own invention, ready to see if she could fly. It worried her—in a vague way, a ghost of worry, a memory that who she had been would have been worried. Because who knew what would happen when they flew? Who knew what they would be capable of? And what if she'd long since lost her capacity to see wrong and do right under that long tutelage past the veil? She was not the good one, after all-- Arthur was. She had been chosen precisely because she was neither good nor evil. She was the lock meant to be unlocked, and what would come with the unlocking was unquantifiable. And unspeakable—she couldn't even tell Tom, and he knew more than anyone else.

There was a tapping at her window, and she went to it, knowing this was what had woken her. The owl was uncharacteristically patient. She went to the window and opened it, summoning an owl treat to her hand. She untied the scroll from the owl and left it to finish its treat. A cold breeze permeated the room, but the cold didn't bother her. It was, after all, what it was. Even her body was complacent, and felt no need to shiver.

The writing on the parchment was her own—she recognized it and smiled. Nothing like the strangeness of receiving a letter from herself to jar her from her immovability. It was a letter from Hermione.

"You said you know the names of the dead. I'm hoping this isn't one of them: Merlin. Ambrosius, if that's what his true name is. You know very well how I am with presentiments and instincts, but I've got this unshakable feeling that I've got to find him—he's here, I can feel it, and I think there may be something to that story about the Lady of the Lake and the rock. Please write me back with anything that can help."

Mione smiled at the paper. "Funny how we go on the same road, even when we take opposite directions," she murmured, and placed her hand on the table to conjure a sheet of paper.


	6. Chapter 6

I know, another long wait. I might do shorter chapters to make the updates more frequent. I am planning on finishing this, so stick around, guys. We might see Draco in the next installment.

Rosiline-- essentially, yes. What happened beyond the veil will be developed more. You don't know exactly what it is, but Mione has definitely drifted even farther away from who she is than in EtScbM.

Jeanne-- It seems much more exciting than it is, I promise. Thanks again for another insightful review. The merpeople are indeed a threat. As we see in this chapter, between them and Slytherin the wizarding world is stuck between a bit of a rock and a hard place. And as for the potential amends-- well, you'll see that too. Mione's very different, it's true, and there's definitely some background on that but it'll be a long time coming. Pretty soon you'll get a demonstration. Hermione's estimation of Mione in this chapter is let's just say not quite on the mark. This is definitely my crackfic! Enjoy.

Ilaaris- hope this is soon enough for you, although I'm sure it's not. Sorry.

blindfaithoperadiva- ah, I'm so glad to see you've stuck around. Again, sorry it's taking so long, it's just really hard for me to focus right now but life is sorting itself out a bit more so hopefully i'll get into more of a flow pretty soon. Meanwhile, enjoy!

But leave the wise to wrangle, and with me

The quarrel of the universe let be:

And, in some corner of the hubbub couched,

Make game of that which makes as much of thee

-Omar Khayyam, The Rubaiyat

Oh, thank goodness, Padma thought despite herself when she saw the owl.

It was that overexcited half-mad owl of the Weaseleys, Pigwidgeon, but she knew that it was really from Hermione. She felt guilty for being thankful that Blaise was asleep when the daft thing came in, ready to start smacking itself into walls, but she caught it in her hands and shushed it, and unbelievably, it listened. Still a tiny thing, its head knocked about in her palms, not attempting to escape, but to look, and smell, and move. If an owl was capable of exhibiting Tourette's syndrome, Pigwidgeon was.

Padma took the scroll from the owl's tiny legs, fed it a treat, and held it outside of her window before she let it fly back into the night air. Blaise stirred in her bed, but only gently, and for only a short time.

"Padma," read the scroll. "I know. I know, I know, I know. I'm sorry, I thought I was doing the best thing, and maybe I did. You may be angry, but I might have done the best thing under the circumstances. Really I suppose it's for you to judge, and Terry, but there wasn't any time to do things the way you like them to be done. Please let's meet and have coffee, like old times. Only not in the Impcap Wing. Everything has ears now.

-Hermione."

Padma sighed. It was the best she could expect. Not an admission that she was _wrong_, but permission to judge. Padma was only the top of her class in Ravenclaw, not a world-class genius and Friend to Harry Potter like Hermione. Anyone else would be grateful just to have gained membership to the Brain Trust.

It was just, she was so _reckless_. At Hogwarts, she had noticed this trend where all others failed. For instance, there was Dumbledore's Army. Padma had warned Parvati that Dolores Umbridge was sure to find out about them somehow. And yes, Umbridge was a horrible old woman who was handicapping the side of the light, and yes, their parents were idiots to think that withdrawing them from school would do anything, and yes, they would fight, they had to fight, that was the only way—but. But, Hermione had thought nothing of permanently disfiguring a girl—and yes, she had told on Dumbledore's Army, but surely there was a way to mark the fibber without turning her _and her friends_ against them. And she'd heard about the Petrificus Totalis she'd put on Neville Longbottom, her own housemate, not to mention the slap heard round Hogwarts that Draco Malfoy relished well into his last year of Hogwarts. Hermione Granger thought herself quite clever, but surely no one who was _really _clever had as many enemies as she'd earned herself.

And now she'd broken the Boundary, and no matter what it did for the Inhuman Empires, Padma knew without knowing any of them that she'd gained all the enemies Hermione had. And she couldn't undo those enemies, she couldn't dissolve herself of this drastic measure, not when she'd been the architect of its design.

And despite all of this, the only thing Hermione Granger allowed her now was to _complain_.

Well, Padma told herself, she _was_ clever. Cleverer than Hermione perceived. She might be resentful, she might even be incensed, but Padma Patil had never thrown anyone to the wind just because of ethics or principles. No matter how angry she was, no matter how incensed, Padma had never made an opponent out of anyone. Even Roger Davies, who had dumped her in front of her whole house when he'd been invited to the Yule Ball by Fleur Delacour, still wrote her on holidays. She depended on his still-vague guilt, in fact. She'd written a long, sorrowful, Hermione-bashing letter to Marrietta Edgecombe after her dismissal from Dumbledore's Army, and enjoyed correspondence from her and her powerful family to this day.

Anger is the greatest folly, pride its second, and vengeance its third, her mother had taught her while she was a child. Imagine if vengeance was a principle of wizard's chess. One would chase after a pawn if it had killed a rook, and lose the queen in the process. No one played wizard's chess that way. It was a game of cold calculation. The secret, her mother had taught her, was that underneath all of its so-called covenants, was that life was exactly the same.

Padma knew this better than her mother. It was why she'd never allowed herself or her sister to be withdrawn from Hogwarts, no matter ho great the threat Voldemort posed.

.((0)).

"Hied thee to a marketplace, fair Luna?" asked Arthur conversationally. He'd improved drastically with a bath (and was fascinated with showers). His hair was a perfect golden color, his beard no darker, and his features were aristocratic. For his time his height had been tall, but in this day and age he was no more than above average. Ron found, when he'd been greeted at the door by Luna's visitor, that he surpassed King Arthur by a head at least. _And_ he was a wizard. He told him this several times while he waited for Luna. The incomprehensible speech and centuries-old nobility had a way of triggering his insecurities.

"Oh, hello, Ron," Luna greeted him as she entered. "You're visiting so often you'd thing it was Huffapod Day.

"I knew I'd mixed up the dates."

"It's easy to do if you forget their diagonal displacement the date during the year of the Heliotrope," she replied, and turned to Arthur. "No, not a marketplace. The Ministry."

"The _Ministry?_" echoed Ron. In a matter of weeks the Ministry had become what it once was when Cornelius Fudge's largest ambition had been to vanquish Lord Voldemort by denial. Only worse. The entire Auror office had gone underground.

"I don't like to burn bridges. It's known to attract snarfalogs."

"Right."

"I dinae ken these snarfalogs," put in Arthur.

"A two-legged butterfly-eater," she answered easily.

Ron gave Arthur a glance and questioned the wisdom of lodging Arthur with Luna. Of course he was curious about the state of the world, and being a muggle, he'd have no ability to distinguish Luna's nonsense from the truth. He shrugged. There were much more important things to thing about—and the Faer Land _could_ probably produce all of the creatures she'd dreamed up.

"Anyway, Excalibur is in the Magical Artefacts wing, so I had to go."

"Speak ye truly?" Arthur asked, rising and clearly excited.

Luna pulled the sword from a small purse that clearly had a few transfiguration spells of it. Arthur watched her, wide-eyed. Ron didn't know whether it was the magic or the sword that sparked more interest. The sword was a beautiful thing, more beautiful even than Godric Gryffindor's sword. "Draco Malfoy thinks he has friends at the Ministry, but you tend to keep more of them if you're not constantly asking for favors and compromises," said Luna. "Bob Harkey told me Excalibur can block spells and penetrate wards."

"Aye, many a battle might have fell me had I not held it," he said, inspecting the sword between his hands.

"Why didn't you use it on the Dementor, then?" asked Ron. From the way Luna looked at him he realized it might not have been the most tactful thing to say.

"Dementor? This I dinae ken either."

Luna placed a hand on his arm. "Do you remember what happened before you… died?"

Arthur grew pale at this, although he didn't startle. "Aye," he said softly. "Never such a wight did I see. A dolorous chill struck me. I could not move to smite it."

"Er, sorry mate. If it makes you feel any better, it made Harry pass out third year. A few times, actually. It was really embarrassing for him." He would have gone on, but Luna and Arthur were both staring at him.

"You are an emotional teaspoon," said Luna airily.

Ron tried to turn his laugh into a cough and was only half successful.

"It was a dementor," said Luna. "Salazar Slytherin invented it."

Arthur examined the sword for a long moment, held before his eyes and parallel to the ground. "I presume this is no more a talisman against it than ever it was," he said softly.

"Not unless it can fart Patronuses," said Ron.

"No matter," he said, and brought the sword down in a practiced stroke, so fast that the air was cleaved by its metal song. "There is aught to stop me from smiting what can be smote."

.((0)).

There was nothing in the darkness but the eyes. They didn't blink, or shift. They glowed gold, and waited. Hermione knew she was dreaming, but didn't know how to wake up. "Tell me," she said to the eyes. "Tell me if I'm right."

But there were only eyes, and no mouth. They watched, and waited, and then Hermione woke up.

The feeling of the dream lingered even in the mundane setting of her flat. It was like a name on the tip of her tongue, only just forgotten.

In the oblivion that Salazar Slytherin had caused, these dreams had started—golden eyes, and a central piece to a puzzle whose image was still only a shadow. No amount of remembering provided any more clarity than this—she'd even tried to make sense of them in the Impcap Wing's Penseive. Except for what she had told Harry. It had come to her after Slytherin, after that cold other self—the self with the golden eyes. And yet it wasn't her, wasn't Mione Potter. Merlin. Merlin was the key to this. As disinclined as she was to intuitions and prophecies, this feeling that Merlin was the key to everything had taken hold of her.

There was a tapping on her window, and Hermione looked up to see the owl she'd sent to her counterpart. When she unrolled the parchment that was attached to its leg, it prickled in her fingers. When she idly examined her fingers she found the tips lit silver. Faer magic. She supposed she could sense it, now.

Her own writing confronted her, and she shivered. She'd told Ron a lot, but there were still things she hadn't told him. That her other self was alive, for instance. She supposed he had to know that Tom Riddle was also alive. It might even be the reason so many discussions between he and Harry or he and Ginny ended when she entered the room. She only hoped the threat of Salazar Slytherin and the likely resurrection of Lord Voldemort would distract them from bothering with Tom Riddle—she knew that the road to him led to Mione Potter.

The note was short. "Merlin never died," it read. "Neither did Rowena."

_Rowena Ravenclaw_, she thought, not knowing what to make of it. Perhaps she was a ghost—Hermione knew that Mione's knowledge of the dead didn't extend to this end of the Veil. But then, that explanation was equally likely in Merlin's case.

But the feeling was stronger now. Merlin never died. The rock, she thought. Why was she so inclined towards that particular tale? She should know, after reading Ravenclaw's own tale, how different history was from the stories.

Her alarm clock began to ring abruptly. For years she'd been waking up before it, but she'd never been able to disabuse herself of it. She was much to anxious of a person to allow the unlikely chance that she'd oversleep—she, who'd never overslept even once.

_No, that's not true. You overslept after you fought Lord Voldemort when he tried to take possession of Tom. You lost days and woke up in his bed and then—_

But that wasn't her, and Tom was no longer an incubus. The growing desire she'd felt for him had almost fully dissipated. Now she understood how much her actions had been dictated by his influence. The absolute bastard.

But Slytherin was here now. And even if Tom didn't make a difference, even if she couldn't trust him, certainly not now, there was Mione. Golden-eyed and cold-hearted, who knew more about what was to come than anyone, even Salazar Slytherin.

_Salazar Slytherin_. How on Earth was she going to tell Terry and Padma that he'd been resurrected. "It wasn't me, it was Draco." That might be a good way to start.

.((0)).

Now a flame, now a star, now an electric bulb. All fire—did that mean something? Once there had been a priest who had rejected the notion of God after studying the pattern of the stars. Another one said to him: "It isn't that the stars are a chaos; they are a pattern so complex only God Himself can understand them." One of those drab nuns had told them that at the orphanage during their Sunday lessons. Tom had dismissed the story. There was no God, he knew that from the beginning.

But principle in Mione's lessons had been that there is always some value to be found in seemingly useless information. Even the muggles might have some knowledge that would prove useful. She was right. She always was. The idea unfolded in front of him, a multifoliate rose: there _was_ a pattern to the Faer Land. Only it was so complex that it appeared to be chaotic.

He'd managed Faer magic, not half as quickly as he'd anticipated. Mione's teachings were limited, dampered by whatever million things she wasn't telling him. It was dangerous, Slytherin was dangerous, Voldemort was dangerous, everything was just so bloody dangerous. She'd never understood just how well he liked danger. All the things he hated and loved best were dangerous, and weren't love and hate twins of each other? Hadn't he fallen in love with a girl meant to kill him? He didn't think he'd have managed to fall in love with anything lesser.

Now a ring of smoke, now lava, and then there was nothing there, so that he didn't know what the latest transformation was until he put his hand out and felt it. Heat. There was a pattern. And if only he could understand it, the Faer land would be more his than anyone's.

.((0)).

"Well. Salazar Slytherin's alive. That's fantastic, now I understand why you went and broke the bloody barrier, because you were trying to prevent Salazar Slytherin from resurrecting. Seems to have worked brilliantly," observed Padma.

Blood was draining from Hermione's face and she couldn't maintain eye contact. "If I'd just let Alicia Silversmith have her way, _she'd_ have control over the Boundary."

"And that would be terrible, you not having control over something."

"At least he's locked into the Faer Land now!" Hermione protested.

"For now. And meanwhile Alicia Silversmith, his apparently willing servant, is alive. Which she wouldn't be if she'd been the one to break the boundary, since Slythering obviously would have killed her," Padma pointed out.

"Yes, and then Slytherin would have control over the Boundary and freedom to go wherever he pleased, which is a much better scenario."

Padma expelled an angry breath. "You're so blind, Hermione. Of course _at the last minute_ you didn't have any options, and given what you had you played your hand beautifully, congratulations. But can't you see that if you'd been more honest with the both of us from the beginning none of this might have happened? Who designed the sigil in the first place?"

"Is this about credit?"

"Oh, get well over yourself, Hermione. I'm saying I would never have designed it if I knew about Alicia Silversmith's interest and intentions."

"Then I would have found another way to break the boundary."

"That's exactly the problem, Hermione. You went full-steam on breaking the boundary when there are a thousand reasons to have waited. Why didn't you? It's been in place a thousand years, what on earth prevented you from looking at the situation more closely, perhaps waiting for the delightful Mrs. Silversmith to die."

Now the blood was returning to her face in full force. "There were mitigating circumstances."

"Such as?"

And incubus. But that wouldn't do.

"Well," put in Terry, who had been silent this whole time, "looking on the bright side--"

"Oh ha _ha_," interrupted Padma.

"No, really. The Inhuman Empires, not all of them, but enough, are a bit out for blood. Or, not blood necessarily, but they was concessions that I know the wizards won't give them and it seems the Mermish Queenship is going to back their demands by threatening to kill the whole of wizarding kind."

Hermione and Padma both gaped at him. Padma shook her head. "How on _earth_ do you know this, Terry?"

"Oh, I'm the ambassador. And they won't kill us, which is also good news, but not _the _good news. The thing is, Lamial—the Mermish Queen, that is, seems to be backing them because Slytherin isn't available as a scapegoat." He smiled and waited for applause. It didn't come. "Don't you understand, if we can deliver Slytherin, this could be a huge boon for Inhuman-wizard relations."

"Oh, yes, I'll just pop off over to his Kingdom that he has utter control over and throw an Avada Kedaveda his way," said Padma.

"You might be right," said Hermione slowly. "We _will_ have to do something about him."

"Eventually we might," said Padma, "but not now. For the love of transmorgrification, Hermione, can you _please_ wait this time? Wait and be reasonable and think of all the factors and possible outcomes instead of just trying to fix the Salazar Slytherin problem in a vacuum of your own creation? I know I can't tell you what to do since you'll just do it. So may I beg? Will it make a difference if I get down on my knees? Because I'd really like to not be thrown into a war with Slytherin, because Ravenclaw's no longer with us."

"That might not be true," said Hermione.

Padma gave her a shrewd look. "Exactly what do you mean by that?"

"Rowena Ravenclaw never died," she whispered.

"How do you know that?" asked Terry.

"A source," said Hermione.

Padma looked at her intensely. "If you want me to trust you, Hermione Granger, you had better damn well explain who this source is."

Hermione looked at Padma. She was serious. Worse, she was right. She had plowed ahead too quickly, and even if Draco Malfoy had been the one to resurrect Salazar Slytherin, even if Alicia Silversmith had stolen the sigil of his ashes, their ability to make their moves had been her own doing. She hadn't considered enough—and she hadn't relied on her friends.

It was too dangerous now to make the same mistakes. So she looked at Padma, and then at Terry, and made them promise they wouldn't tell anyone. She didn't make them sign a contract, she didn't cast a spell to ensure the story wouldn't leave their lips. She simply decided to trust them.

"This morning I received a letter from myself," she began.

Hours later, with Terry and Padma still chatting, Hermione left the office of Weaseley's Wizard Wheezes, which had become the defacto setting for all important discussions that reasonably-minded wizards didn't want overheard.

No sooner than she'd contemplated stopping into Florean Fortescu's did she see the figment of her problems. Alicia Silverstone was exiting Diagon Alley. Hermione set her chin and headed towards the woman, who didn't notice Hermione until she nearly upon her.

"Finishing up Slytherin's shopping list?" asked Hermione.

Alicia visibly startled upon seeing her. Well, then. That was all very clear—she'd expected her to be dead. She did not, however, avert her gaze. Instead her eyes dropped into a venomous look, which she focused on Hermione with laser precision. Even now, remembering everything about her life, knowing Alicia as well as her counterpart, Hermione was unnerved by the intensity of a virtual stranger's hatred. Only, she knew this stranger to be formidable. Alicia did not move, and it was impossible simply to walk away. So Hermione walked over to her, squaring her shoulders in determination.

"I suppose you meant to bring Slytherin back to kill me? You thought he would do so to regain power over the Boundary?"

"You always were clever."

"You'd do well to remember my cleverness."

"Dear me, are you attempting to put me in my place? Have you managed to vanquish Slytherin already?"

Hermione looked down at her hand. She raised it, reaching towards the Boundary, and her hands glowed silver. "I locked him in."

Alicia's expression barely changed, but there was a slight flicker—perhaps it wasn't so clever to have let her know—or did she already? Alicia didn't break eye contact, however, and after a long pause, she shook her head and muttered, "Too clever by half." She brushed Hermione as she walked by her, making her greater height known. But she was still strong, and still hateful, and she would do what she pleased, that much was clear.


End file.
